


Cuy'kaysh Dar

by mneiai



Series: Cuy'kaysh Dar [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuy'val Dar, Dark, Dark Obi-Wan Kenobi, F/M, Force-Sensitive Clones (Star Wars), Gen, Haat Mando'ade, Hurt Obi-Wan Kenobi, Kamino, Kyr'tsad, M/M, Mandalorian Culture, Mandalorian Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mando'a, Mixed views on the personhood of clones, Non-Chronological, Not Beta Read, Past Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze, Possessive Behavior, Post-Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Sith magic, The Dark Side of the Force, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 20,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25427407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mneiai/pseuds/mneiai
Summary: Obi-Wan falls to save his master, then flees to save his own life. In the wrong place at the right time, Jango Fett sees another Jedi Killer and a perfect addition to his growing group of trainers.
Relationships: Boba Fett & Jango Fett, Dooku & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dred Priest/Isabet Reau, Jango Fett & Clone Troopers, Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Clone Troopers, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Cuy'val Dar
Series: Cuy'kaysh Dar [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878691
Comments: 455
Kudos: 1577
Collections: Jedi Journals





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Cuy'Val Dar means "those who no longer exist" and from what I can find comes from Cuyir (exist), Val (they/theirs), and Dar (gone). Kaysh means he/his so I'm assuming it can just be shoved in there and still have the same basic meaning (he who no longer exists).
> 
> This won't be in strict chronological order and will basically be a bunch of short parts of the whole, maybe eventually I'll turn it into something more. 
> 
> This first part was originally posted as [a chapter in my drabble collection](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25161553/chapters/61587391) and only slightly edited.

"Kenobi!"

He froze, the Force buzzing a warning that running wouldn't get him anywhere this time. Turning, Obi-Wan found two Jedi watching him, lightsaber hilts in their hands. Around them, the street had gone quiet, the lowlives and mercenaries in this part of Nar Shaddaa familiar with the threat the Jedi represented.

"We're taking you in!" one of the Knights, a Twi'lek who was only vaguely familiar to him, called.

The Council had been smart enough to send people he only vaguely recognized after him and not someone he might be able to talk down, but also foolish to send people he wouldn't feel so bad about hurting. It was so hard not to react with excessive violence when the Dark was so close.

He scoffed. "I'm not going back so the Council can execute me for _saving someone's life_."

"You _fell_. We won't allow you to pollute the galaxy with the Dark side."

Some Jedi were particularly fanatical about the Dark, generally ones that had never actually seen someone using it. Obi-Wan had known since he was twelve that the Dark wasn't a reason to sacrifice his own compassion. Becoming a monster to fight a monster wouldn't actually improve the world.

"Then I suppose we're at an impasse."

The first Knight sneered, the only warning Obi-Wan received before he attacked. 

Obi-Wan had left his lightsaber in the transport he'd been supposed to take from Naboo to Coruscant, but he'd often been without his lightsaber while fighting on his worst missions--captured or not being able to have such an obvious identifier on him--he'd learned quickly how to fight without a weapon against another.

And it was clear, whatever assignments these Knights normally had, they weren't used to fighting people familiar with lightsaber combat.

He ducked one strike, twisting and rolling, letting the two work against each other and have to constantly adjust as he forced them together. During a flip he managed to grab the knife in his boot, landing faster than expected with a sudden push of the Force and slamming the knife into a nerve cluster in the lekku of the first Knight. They screamed in pain and he grabbed their lightsaber from their weakened grip, just in time to block a strike from the second Jedi, a Tholothian old enough to be on the verge of Mastery.

Moments like these, since starting his flight across the galaxy, made him realize just how good of a fighter he actually was. With Qui-Gon, he'd never felt good enough. In the training salle, having to follow all the rules of the spar and keep his emotions locked down so as not to embarrass his master with his passion, he'd assumed he was a fighter of middling skill, his real talent in his clever words.

Here, in the wild, letting go, he was coming to realize there was a reason he was the one capable of killing a Sith.

He twirled out of the way of another strike, ducking to avoid a punch from the now weaponless Knight, and heard another scream as the other lightsaber cut into them, the Tholothian not pulling their blow fast enough.

His opponent's shock and horror gave him another opening, slicing off the arm holding the lightsaber, then kicking them in the head hard enough to knock them out.

Obi-Wan dropped the borrowed lightsaber--still too indoctrinated to steal one--and finally ran.

If he got far enough away, he could have time to change out disguises and get off planet.

There was no warning in the Force when a hand grabbed him, pulling him through a door that quickly shut behind him. He twisted, breaking the hold, falling into a ready stance.

Four figures in _beskar'gam_ stood watching him, relaxed despite his readiness to fight.

"Calm down, we're no friends of the _jetiise_."

He narrowed his eyes at the speaker, trying to remember what the symbols and colors of his armor meant. "Considering I was, until recently, a _jetii_ , that doesn't fill me with much confidence coming from _ori'ramikad_."

Their surprise at his Mando'a, lacking the Coruscanti accent of the rest of his words, echoed through the room and then settled, somehow, into reassurance. 

"Exactly. We've got a common enemy."

"And?" There was more to this than them temporarily inconveniencing the Jedi, he could feel it.

"You need somewhere to lie low, for at least a few years if they're hunting you that fiercely. I need people of certain skillsets who are willing to disappear."

Whatever the Force was trying to tell him, it was practically screaming, now. He didn't have to be Mace Windu to feel the massive shatterpoint of this moment, to know this decision could make or break him and he didn't know which.

But he had nothing left to lose.


	2. Chapter 2

Using the name Satine had given him for dealing with these Mandalorians ( _Jango Fett_ , of all people), made Obi-Wan feel a little guilty, but other than his own name, "Ben" was what he was most likely to respond to. 

He didn't have to worry so much about the Kaminoans--who he was almost certain were in on the plot and were more than willing to go with the offhand excuse Jango gave that the Jedi had faked kicking him out so he could secretly train their soldiers--it was the other Cuy'val Dar (and wasn't that name ominous). If they looked up Ben Cerasin on the Holonet, they'd find no link to Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The only people who knew were Fett and the few others that had been there when he was recruited. And they saw him as a Jedi killer more than an ex-Jedi (even if he hadn't been trying to use lethal force on the two he'd fought).

At least, he had assumed they would be the only ones.

Seeing _Master Dooku_ show up for inspections made Obi-Wan feel as though the Force itself was mocking him. Because while they had never met, while he'd lost his Padawan braid and changed his haircut, was wearing armor the others had helped him throw together before arriving, and was shielding in the Force like he never had before, he knew the other former Jedi still recognized him.

He'd probably kept track of Qui-Gon's Padawans if only to send mocking messages to him about his failures, from what Obi-Wan knew of the man.

The momentary break in Dooku's demeanor when his eyes landed on Obi-Wan probably wasn't missed by the others, worse was the nod he gave him, when he ignored everyone else but the Kaminoans and Fett.

That he requested a private moment with Obi-Wan meant he'd _definitely_ be getting grilled by the others once Dooku left.

" _Grandpadawan_ , I cannot express how relieved I am to see you well." Dooku spoke with all the sincerity of a politician, his eyes shadowed as he looked down on Obi-Wan in the small conference room they'd been given.

"Kind words, _Tyrannus_." He thought the other almost flinched. 

There were accusations on the tip of his tongue--what did Dooku have to do with Naboo? Why was he going by a _Sith name_ when it was the Sith who so nearly killed Qui-Gon (was he _hoping_ that one or both of his lineage would Fall? Had he been part of the plan to send a Sith against them to try to make them Fall?). 

(And the quieter, broken part of him that wondered that if it had been Qui-Gon to Fall, Dooku would have immediately offered him assistance, not left him alone and hunted.)

He held back, knowing he was unlikely to get a truthful answer.

"I am, Grandpadawan. I searched for you, after you ran. Qui-Gon, as well, attempted to find you."

"To turn me over for my execution?" Anger came so easily, now, it was hard to shed it into the Force, it just wanted to build and build.

"Of course not!" Dooku set a hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder, then, not waiting for an invite, pulled him into an embrace.

His breath caught in his throat, hands balling into fists at his side, and he didn't think he'd ever felt so helpless, not even when he'd first realized the Jedi wouldn't forgive him for his lapse.

"I can break your contract for you, you can return to Serenno with me."

"It's safer here."

Safer from the Jedi, safer from Dooku.

"...Of course. But please, tell me if there is anything you need."

Obi-Wan didn't, of course he didn't, but that didn't stop Dooku. Shipments of his favorite tea, additions to his wardrobe made more finely than any clothing and footwear he'd ever owned as a Jedi, two lightsabers he didn't even want to know the origin of. Bribes, or attempts at buying forgiveness, Obi-Wan still took them and gave Dooku nothing in return.

Not that first year.

But as easy as anger came to him, hatred was reserved for others--for the Sith who had almost killed Qui-Gon, for the scientists who treated babies like products, for the Jedi who had so easily written him off because they'd never had faith in him--and Obi-Wan found himself thawing to his Grandmaster.

It didn't hurt that while Dooku's attention had brought unnecessary questions, it had also eased the minds of the others that he wasn't actually a Jedi spy. Dooku, after all, seemed to be the one who had come up with the plan.

And they all had realized just what they were working towards.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So darjetii/dar’jetii means Sith in Mando’a, but as with other languages with glottal stops I'm assuming that the word meaning can change just by having one in there, so I'm using dar'jetii to mean what it literally means--former Jedi and darjetii to mean Sith. That would mean Dooku is both darjetii and dar’jetii, but here Obi-Wan is just dar'jetii.
> 
> Funnily, dar’jetii would probably be the exact opposite of dar’manda (former/disgraced Mandalorian) in that leaving the Jedi would be seen as a good thing. 
> 
> Also, I forget if I mentioned here, but my tumblr is [manyangledone](https://manyangledone.tumblr.com) and I'm totally up for discussing this fic or others.

Faking even a _dar'jetii's_ death was more fun than Jango had expected. He'd had to tell Tyrannus, of course, because he gave reports on all the trainers, but he hadn't gone into too much detail, even using the fake name that "Ben" now had all the proper (forged) documents for.

As far as the _jetiise_ were concerned, Obi-Wan Kenobi had been killed while fleeing them. If Jango had more faith in them, he might wonder if they'd feel guilty about that, at the waste of the talented young man they'd kept in their possession for so long. But these were _jetiise_ , so he assumed they didn't even know how to care.

When they were finally on Kamino, initial contracts signed and learning why they were there, Jango watched him. There was something especially satisfying about how quickly he caught onto the true nature of the army, when the others were still confused (outraged) waiting on Jango's explanation, Ben was staring at the holos with fear in his eyes. By the time Jango was done, though, he had locked that away under a look of quiet contemplation.

They'd only just met and Jango wasn't normally the sort to get attached, but they'd be working together for _years_ and so he let himself think of all the ways he wanted to teach Ben, all the things within him he wanted to see changed. By the end of the contract, Jango wanted Ben to _hate_ the _jetiise_ , to delight in their destruction as much as Jango and the Haat'ade with them would (he wondered if this was what the _darjetii_ felt, why they seemed to enjoy corrupting _jetii_ so much in the histories).

Until then, he would work with what he had.

Even when it was years before any of the batches were ready to train with a Force user (and Jango made clear in subtle and overt ways that Ben shouldn't be called a _jetii_ , that at most he was a _dar'jetii_ , just to be safe), but apparently this one had skills beyond what he'd expected. He was almost disturbingly good at knowing how an army of children would fight, if anything he seemed to get caught out when the clones were more disciplined than he was ready for.

Not that he didn't care about Jango’s clones, if anything he seemed to care too much. He trained them to protect them, more than to make them effective fodder. He spent time with them, too, singing lullabies to the youngest, telling age appropriate stories of the outside world to the ones old enough to understand them.

He taught them games, too, seemingly modified from ones Force users would learn as younglings (and admitted privately to Jango that he had never had a life outside the Jedi, not really, and had no idea what normal children played). He taught them nearly as much Mando'a as the actual Mando'ade, even knowing some of the culture and clearly respecting it.

But when it was time for them to fight, he _fought_. As much as Ben showed them how to fight with their future _jetiise_ , he also had them come against him. Never seriously injuring them, he didn’t hesitate to bruise or scare when it would teach a lesson.

He was so very _mandokarla_ that sometimes it was all Jango could do not to demand the _Resol'nare _from him, not to have him declare Jango his Mand'alor. Not to tell him _his_ plans, for when the Republic and Tyrannus, and Tyrannus’ master, were too distracted to stop him from taking back Mandalore for the Haat’ade.__

__The others seemed to agree, for the most part. Among themselves they spoke Mando'a almost exclusively and introduced Ben to more and more of their culture. He admitted to having been in Mandalore space when he was younger, then, reluctantly, told them how the Mando'ad he'd had a crush on had joined the New Mandalorians._ _

__Among the few who seemed to have not realized he had been an actual _jetii_ , there was the assumption he’d left that crush behind because of his actual sympathies, which Jango also fed into. He didn’t want Priest or Reau getting too close to him, but even they were better than whatever Ben had been exposed to before._ _

If Ben had caught on, he didn't seem to actually care. Or maybe he just didn't see a reason to resist--after all, he'd been thrown away by the _jetiise_ and it was Jango who had saved him, who had offered him a place to belong. He'd seen enough of Ben to know he could be loyal, he could love despite his upbringing, and he had very little to love on Kamino but them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dialogue that's just between most of the Cuy'val can be considered to be in Mando'a, for the most part. Because of that, I'll only be doing Mando'a words for proper nouns, for the most part (such as Mand'alor, Manda'yaim, etc.). When they're with the clones, the Kamini, Dooku, etc. it will be the normal Basic with some Mando'a thrown in.

"What are you doing, Ben'ika?"

Obi-Wan slowly opened his eyes, looking up from where he was kneeling on a pillow and finding a few other trainers had come up to him, unnoticed while he was meditating. It had been Jango's hand carding through his hair like he was petting an animal that had brought him out.

The lightsaber that had been floating before him fell and he deftly caught it, hoping the movement might distract the others from his blush.

"I'm trying to heal the crystal in this lightsaber."

"Heal it?" Priest didn't normally bother much with him, but for as unsavory as the man was, he didn't pass up the chance to learn about his potential enemies.

"Darkside users--and that's who made this one--tend to use the Force through their lightsabers in a way that harms the kyber crystal inside. We call it 'bleeding,' since it's what causes the red color of the blade."

Jango made a noise, possibly of interest. "And that weakens the crystal?"

"Well, eventually. I don't know all the details." No, Obi-Wan being 'too interested' in matters of the Dark had never been an option, not after Xanatos. "What it does is...."

He paused, trying to think how to explain to these people, who largely lacked empathy and did not care about many others, how awful it felt to know the kyber was in pain. And to do it in Mando’a, where he might be arguably fluent but was still missing terms.

"Have you ever had a blaster that functioned perfectly, but there was something off about it? Maybe the feel of the grip, the trigger pressure, the noise it made?"

"Kriffing annoying." And if Dred Priest understood, Obi-Wan decided his explanation was good enough.

He turned the hilt around in his hands, staring at it. "I don't have access to the parts to make my own right now, but healing the crystal is something I can do to improve how this feels. It will take a lot of meditation to complete, I need to connect to the crystal and find every bit of damage, then heal that. So that's what I'm doing."

The others lost interest when they found out that the levitating hilt would be the flashiest thing about what Obi-Wan was doing and left for other parts of the lounge, but Jango still hadn't moved from his position right behind him. It was all he could do to stay relaxed and quiet, waiting.

"You don't consider yourself a...Darkside user?"

Obi-Wan hadn't known what Jango was dwelling on and now wished it had been nearly anything else. "I Fell, but it's my choice whether I just...give up, give in or not."

"Tyranus is a Darksider."

He almost replied that Tyranus was a _Sith_ , but held back. For all that Jango was perfectly aware they were pretending to work for the Jedi while helping to destroy them, Obi-Wan still didn't know how much he knew about Dooku. Information had value.

"Are you looking for a confirmation or...?"

Jango huffed out a breath, his hand finally dropping from Obi-Wan's hair. "He seems interested in you, he won't be happy if you keep acting like a Jedi, will he?"

Shrugging, Obi-Wan stood, collecting the pillow to place it back on the couch. "I can handle that. It's not like anything could protect me from him, if he were upset."

He didn't miss the way Jango stiffened at the subtle jab. It might be playing with fire, but it was the most he could do at the moment to try to appeal to whatever heart Jango had left.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone wants to give one, I'll be taking prompts based on this verse for a little bit in my Tumblr asks ([here](https://manyangledone.tumblr.com/ask)). Not guaranteeing I'll fill the prompts, but if I get inspired I will. You don't need a Tumblr to send one. If they work as potential chapters here, they'll go here, otherwise I'll probably put them in my drabble collection.
> 
> Also, since it came up in a comment: it's pretty ambiguous exactly what Jango knew about the clones, how much power he actually had, and what his long term plans were, so since this is super self-indulgent, he basically knows everything, has a ton of power as far as the clones go, and has his own plots that in canon he died too soon for (for all the comics and some other stuff make him seem less informed, he's also super observant and knows his politics in other pieces of Legends canon).

Obi-Wan tried not to have favorites, but of course he did. He knew the others did, as well. At least, the others who saw their charges and realized they were actual humans and not “flesh droids.”

(He still remembered meeting them for the first time, feeling each unique little life in the Force and knowing that they were as much people as any natural born person was. When the first of them were finally old enough for the trainers to spend real time with them, it was worse, their individual personalities shining through them.)

Hell, Skirata had _adopted_ the Nulls. And while even though he sometimes did bully Obi-Wan into sneaking away and assisting with their training so they could practice with (or against) a Force user, they treated _him_ more like a tool than a person.

So it was really the Alphas that Obi-Wan got to appreciate, and there were only 100 of them. (And fewer and fewer still, as the months went on, the sudden smothering of their lives in the Force reminding Obi-Wan he still had a heart)

Alpha-17 was by far Obi-Wan’s favorite out of them. He was the cutest of the little monsters (though if he ever brought that up, most of the other trainers complained they all looked the same), but also his personality just clicked with Obi-Wan. They understood each other, as much as a 20-something ex-Jedi and a growing-too-fast clone child could. Sometimes he thought this could be what it was like to have a Padawan.

He didn’t go easy on him, if anything maybe he went a little harder on him because he was more committed to seeing him survive than his brothers. But he also was more likely to sneak him candy (which he of course would share) or tell a story of the outside world at his prompting. At least, he did when Jango wasn't around.

When Jango was around, everything was stricter, a distance enforced with every interaction. Even Priest was on his best behavior (for what that was worth), because Jango didn't just have a say over the fates of the cadets, if he decided one of the Cuy'val weren't working out, they had no illusions about being allowed to just leave.

The kids, for all they were _so young_ , seemed to understand. Obi-Wan thought maybe they misinterpreted sometimes, assumed it was about respect and rank, and whatever else military banthashit they were being taught. He supposed he understood that, too--he'd respected many Jedi over the years just for their rank, even when they weren't necessarily good people or deserving respect.

And that was why, for as sad as Obi-Wan was that he couldn't always be friendly, he was thankful for it--these weren't children he was helping to raise, they were clone soldiers, and he was raising them to die. He didn't want them thinking _he_ was a good person.


	6. Chapter 6

For the most part, Obi-Wan was kept away from the lessons where the cadets were indoctrinated to all-but worship the Jedi. He was thankful for that, the dichotomy of having to sing pretty lies about the Order while going back to their private areas to spew hatred at it would have surely been an unpleasant experience, but he wasn’t completely separated from it.

At some point, the cadets had gotten old enough to realize their Force sensitive trainer might know more about the Jedi. He was able to ignore them, even scold them, when the questions started, but the kids were smart, and it wasn’t long until it was Alpha-17, who was really getting to know him too well, who was asking the questions.

Obi-Wan said small things. He taught them of meditation, of the Room of a Thousand Fountains, of some of the terminology.

And he found his chest aching, sometimes, from the memories. He missed the sound of Bant’s laughter when he did something foolish, kissing the playful smirk on Quinlan’s lips, Garen talking his ear off about some new hyperdrive model he’d gotten to play with no matter how Obi-Wan tried to change the subject. He even missed his Master's awful, awful cooking (though not the food poisoning he sometimes developed after it).

Those days, standing in one of the lounges in the trainers’ section, he’d watch the other Cuy’val Dar and he’d hate them with all the passion a Jedi couldn’t have. They weren’t building a family, they were all just doing a job. Half of them didn’t even like the other half and would gladly go back to trying to kill each other once this long contract was over.

He’d withdraw, and if he was lucky (or, maybe, unlucky) no one would notice. Not for days, not for weeks. Maybe he’d harass Skirata into letting him train the Nulls, something that never gave him any real pleasure. Maybe he’d spiral into silence working on new battle simulations.

And then Jango would arrive back on Kamino and somehow just _know_.

Jango’s disappointed looks were just as bad as anything the Council had ever given him. Worse, maybe, because when he looked like that Boba knew instinctively to pout at Obi-Wan and Boba, unlike the cadets, got to be an actual child with all the powers that came with.

Obi-Wan wanted to scream at Jango, wanted to punch and kick, to rend and tear, because he _did not belong to Jango_. And yet he did. Horribly, he knew he did. There would be no safety for him in Republic space after his contract was over and he could not ask those he’d known before, who had known him as a _Jedi_ and not a Jedi-Killer, to protect him. His choices were Jango or Dooku and that was no choice at all.

***

Late at night, alone in his apartment with storms raging against the windows, he sometimes fantasized about bringing the whole plot down around them. Getting a message to the Jedi Council, just enough information for them to know a plot was afoot. 

But if they realized it came from him, they wouldn’t trust the source. They’d destroy themselves before taking the word of a Fallen Jedi.


	7. Chapter 7

One of the break rooms near their training area was stocked with alcohol and cards. Sometimes they even used it for actual recreation.

The others could get (censored by Jango) messages to friends and family off Kamino, and receive some in return, so the meandering discussions were Obi-Wan's best way of getting information that wasn't from whatever made it to the Holonet. After all, mercenaries, bounty hunters, and assassins tended to get information the holonews didn't.

"We should be allowed vacations, they don't have to be long, I just want off this soaking rock," Reau often complained. 

Obi-Wan didn't know what Death Watch did for fun, but assumed it would involve murder and mayhem. Maybe Jango had brought them into this just to keep them out of the way.

"That would be nice. I think I'm starting to crack, I was fantasizing about _Tatooine_ the other day." They chuckled with Obi-Wan at his comment, though it wasn't entirely a joke--sometimes he thought he'd rather be deepsea mining on Bandomeer.

"But couldn't you could use your little Force tricks to sneak off planet, get out of this. We'd cover for you." Mij waved his hand as he spoke, encompassing the group of trainers considered specialists in the more unique areas of the cadets' training.

Obi-Wan grimaced, wishing it wasn't them he had to break the bad news to. "Tyrannus wrote that contract we signed."

"So? You've learned as much from us as you've taught the cadets, don't think you can stay ahead of him?"

"I don't think I want to see what fail-safes a Sith put into a contract for _years_ of our lives."

"What?" Mij's wasn't the only shocked voice, most of them catching on to his meaning immediately. "...They can do...Force things? With contracts?"

"With writing, they can sneak spells into them, bind anyone signing with Sith magic. It's not as if the Sith care about things like informed consent. I'm no expert, the contract felt dangerous, but even studying it I probably couldn't pick apart all the things we agreed to, metaphysically."

Before Kamino, the closest Obi-Wan had ever gotten to Dooku was his notes in their lineage's copy of The Jedi Path and Qui-Gon's refusal to teach him Makashi. But everyone _knew of_ Master Dooku, and his reputation for being interested in history, in old temples and older magic, in spending long hours on research in his spare time and bringing back Jedi artifacts thought lost to time from his side missions, had preceded him.

Obi-Wan had no illusions about whether or not he had delved deep into Sith magic as soon as he was out from the Dark-wary watch of the Order. The only one who could get out of their contract was Obi-Wan, and only by giving into whatever it was that Dooku wanted from him.

"Fuck us."

He had to laugh at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always felt there should be more to Reau (and Priest) being recruited by Jango than just being effective Death Watch fighters because surely he'd rather have any number of other good fighters who weren't part of an organization that had literally ruined Jango's life multiple times. So Reau is a medic, which is why she has a similar schedule to Mij (and of course Mij fucking hates her with a burning passion, but has to play nice for now), who both have a similar schedule to Obi-Wan because he's the odd sentient out as the only Force user.


	8. Chapter 8

He liked watching Jango training the cadets. It wasn’t that there was any softer side of him showing through (the only times that happened was with Boba), but Jango’s solid authority and no-nonsense approach came as much from a place of wanting to prepare the cadets to survive as it did from wanting them to be able to take down Jedi.

Some of the trainers weren’t good people and should not be allowed near children. Obi-Wan had known from the start Jango wasn’t one of them (if he had been, Obi-Wan didn’t know what he’d have done, he couldn’t have gotten Boba away from him but he couldn’t have left him with a person like Vau).

They started the batch after the Nulls with 100 children. Every time that number dropped, Jango was angry. 

Angry at the genetic defects that hadn’t been caught before they were decanted. Angry at the Kaminoans and their shallow views of perfection. Angry at himself and the Cuy’val Dar for not training the cadets enough or in the right way, whatever it was that was keeping some of them from surviving.

Obi-Wan knew that anger, it had taken root in his soul in the palace of Theed and never left him. Anger at being helpless, at being so strong and still so weak.

There were flecks of gold in his eyes on the days they received reports on “decommissioned” cadets. If anyone noticed, they very carefully didn’t say anything after the first time that he hesitantly told them it was a _dar'jetii_ thing.

When he caught _Alpha-17_ of all cadets near tears the day of one of the reports, something in him snapped. He didn’t remember much beside the cold, cold chill of the Dark Side and his rage, the sweet fear of the Kaminoans around him, flashes of them in the air, struggling against a hold on their throats they couldn’t stop.

Apma threw a flimsy ship at his head (apparently taking the time to construct it as the Kaminoans struggled, not really caring if they were hurt but not wanting to deal with the fallout of too many scientists’ deaths) and distracted him enough to let them go. It was a struggle to regain just enough control to release some of his anger into the Force, but he managed.

He waited, after that, for the trainers to grow more wary of him, to treat him as more of a danger. They didn't. There were a few more jokes about _darjetiise_ , more Force worked into some of the training simulations, notable additions to their armor of an upper gorget around their necks, but their fear of him was no greater than it was before.

It took him a long time to realize it's because they had always thought of Jedi as monsters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm using dar'jetiise to mean former Jedi and darjetiise to mean Sith, as Mando'a just has the same word for both.


	9. Chapter 9

Dooku visited when he could, which Obi-Wan knew was more often than he'd probably originally planned. They had a training area set aside just for them, where Obi-Wan sometimes practiced on his own. No one else ever came to it, never interrupted him there, not even Jango.

Which was a shame, because Obi-Wan was fairly sure adjustments had been made to make the area one of the most private places in the whole facility.

He thought he'd been given two lightsabers because Dooku wanted to see if he chose the Light or Dark one. Of course, he couldn't know his grandpadawan's love of being contrary and perhaps didn't even remember his own notes on lightsaber forms he'd left with Qui-Gon.

Obi-Wan didn't know Dooku personally, but he knew he disliked Jar'Kai, and so when they met for training Obi-Wan held both sabers in his hands and took a ready stance.

A long-suffering sigh was his answer and Obi-Wan smirked, spinning the hilts into reverse grip.

"Absolutely not."

He shrugged and conceded, having known he wasn't going to stand a chance using reverse grip Jar'Kai against a Makashi master, but wanting to see how far he could push him.

They fought for hours, Obi-Wan never winning a bout. He didn't mind, even holding his own for a time against someone at Dooku's level was an accomplishment.

After that, it kept happening. A few days here and there where Obi-Wan's schedule was cleared and he was taken away to the Force training area. He grew ever better at Jar'Kai, but also used one lightsaber at times, switching hands, trying to be the best he could be with all variations his limited human body allowed.

Which did mean the occasional reverse grip, to Dooku's consternation.

But he remembered the Sith he'd fought on Naboo, the double bladed staff and the difficulty he'd had defending against such a weapon, and kept pushing himself. This wasn't training he could do with the Cuy'val Dar, not really, and unless he took Dooku's offer to leave and really train under him, the brief periods he was given his attention was all he'd get.

He ran through every single form he could, regretting that he never had the chance to learn Vaapad from Master Windu.

As the years went on, there were many highlights of his training: The first time he defeated Dooku in a match, the first time he defeated him in a few. The first time Dooku approached their spar with the air of someone who didn't know if he could take down his opponent.

He wished there was some way to get a rematch against the Sith he'd once fought, to prove how much better he'd become without fully diving into the Darkside, with just continuing to skirt the edges of it.


	10. Chapter 10

Sometimes he dreamt of Satine. Of her soft smile, her determined eyes. He would have left the Order for her, but she would have never asked him to do so. Now, he wished they’d been more selfish, that he could have known he was never meant to be a Jedi Knight and stayed with her, building up her world, instead.

He wondered if, by the time his contract was up, he’d still be the person she’d loved. If he’d stand by Jango’s side as he inevitably killed her.

He’d been on Kamino for four years before Jango found out he knew her. It was an offhand comment by one of the Kry’tsad Cuy’val Dar, about the Jedi protector she’d once had. Jango had looked across the table and when their eyes met, whatever showed on Obi-Wan’s face must have told him the truth.

Jango punched him as soon as they were alone, then slammed him against a wall hard enough he saw stars. He kept close the whole time to make it harder for Obi-Wan to Force push him. For a moment, Obi-Wan feared for his life--this was the sentient who killed Jedi with his bare hands, right up against him.

Then the moment passed and he recognized the possessive jealousy in Jango’s jagged emotions.

" _Satine Kryze_. The _New Mandalorian_ figurehead." Jango's anger twisted and seethed from him, Obi-Wan could swear he could almost see it, that if he reached out he might be able to feel it under his hands and not just in the Force.

"It was years ago. Before we ever met."

"If I hadn't found you, would you have run to her?" 

Obi-Wan shrugged, the movement awkward in Jango's grip. "I wasn't doing a lot of long term planning when you found me."

That was taken as confirmation and Jango slammed against him again. Even though he was a touch shorter than Obi-Wan, he was far more sturdily built, and it _hurt_.

“I saw you fight then, I’ve seen you do it now. You’re no _pacifist_.” He said the word like a curse, which to the traditional Mandalorians it probably was. “You have no place in the _dar’Manda’yaim_ she’s built.”

“I know,” he muttered, shoulders slumping. 

He wasn’t just trying to appease Jango, he knew it was true. He’d never be able to fit in among the New Mandalorians, especially not as a Jedi-Killer. Especially not with the Jedi still hunting him down and him having a need to defend himself with lethal force.

“Ben.” Jango drew his attention again, his grip loosening, his hold becoming something more tender as he settled his own temper. “Obi-Wan. That is not a _bad_ thing. You were born to fight, to be a warrior. You belong with us."

This was a trick, Obi-Wan knew it was a trick. That didn't mean it wasn't working.

***

The others, the ones who'd figured out (and accepted) that he had been an actual Jedi, had seen Jango's reaction and also figured out what that meant. He received a lot of questions, about Satine, the New Mandalorians, but also just the time he'd spent in the sector.

Suddenly some idiosyncrasies made sense to them and they wanted to know more. About what food he liked, and drink, and what fighting Kyr'tsad had been like.

It also explained away his accent, Kalevalan posh covered with Concordia gruffness, from learning through Satine but sometimes having to infiltrate Death Watch. And how he could know so much of some of their traditions and nothing of others.

The ones who figured out he loved Satine were few, thankfully, though their suspicious looks followed him for months. Whether it was Jango saying something or just watching him fighting and training soldiers, Obi-Wan didn't know what made them relax finally, but was glad for it.

Satine was as much an untouchable part of his past as being a Jedi was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando’a:  
> dar’Manda’yaim - disgraced Mandalore/a Mandalore that's no longer Mandalorian. I'm using the planet as a synecdoche for the sector as a whole.


	11. Chapter 11

There were only ever a handful of Force sensitive cadets. They always had low midichlorian counts, the most powerful barely high enough to qualify for the Temple creche, but enough to be useful. 

Obi-Wan felt them the most, when they were growing, and used Jango's authority to keep them from being murdered when they started showing signs of being different. He didn't have his own little set of cadets, like Skirata, but he took them twice a week for special training--meditation (that they were supposed to do on their own, too, and since these were cadets and not Initiates Obi-Wan knew they were), sensing people and objects, reading emotions. Shielding.

They spent so, so much time on shielding.

He worried what the Jedi would do with them and thought it best they hide themselves just in case. They could use their abilities to survive, to help their siblings survive, but they had to be cautious.

Obi-Wan grew better at shielding, too, with the practice. Dooku loaned him books and holocrons on it, when he asked, and he learned techniques he had never even heard of, trying to figure out what to teach to the cadets and how to do so.

"You're _gone_ ," one gasped, when he was testing a new technique, and the others confirmed it.

It was not a technique for soldiers dealing with Jedi, but was one for anyone doing stealth missions, so he taught it to them regardless of the unease they showed from having their teacher disappear from the Force.

When he wasn't working with or for the cadets, Obi-Wan tried to see how far he _could_ disappear. It was more out of the comfort he found in the idea of just...not existing for a time...than an actual need.

He learned to bend light around him to fool cameras, to adjust the temperature around his body so infrared couldn't notice him. To muffle the sounds he made and the smells he put off (that one had been difficult, surrounded mostly by humans and near-humans who wouldn’t easily smell him, and on one of his cadet's suggestions he'd stolen some of Davin's awful aftershave and tried hiding that from them).

Obi-Wan mostly used Apma and Mij to test him, walking around them, going down corridors they knew to watch from one of the security rooms. Mij as a doctor was trained to notice small details like a change in smell and Apma as a marksman was good at spotting visual details.

While getting Dooku’s insight into how much he actually disappeared into the Force would have been very helpful, Obi-Wan was hesitant to let him see how far he’d come. None of the techniques he was using were technically Dark side, but were similar to the tightly-regulated styles like Vaapad where they hovered in the grey areas of the Force.

Also, he didn’t know when he’d have to use his newfound skills _against_ his grandmaster.

The cadets couldn't do half of what he could, which as someone with only a moderate midichlorian count for a Jedi and a former Master who had been friends with some of the most powerful members of the Order was a novel experience. They learned what they could, though, and he made sure they knew how proud he was of them every chance be had--they may not be his Padawans, but he was going to be better to them than any of the adults in his life had been to him.


	12. Chapter 12

After the Alphas, the Kaminoans seemed to have settled on a version of Jango they liked. They claimed these cadets would be more obedient, which gave Obi-Wan a headache just imagining with how much trouble the current cadets got into and how much the Kaminoans must have been messing around with genetics.

Their Force signatures were different, he couldn't help but notice. A little closer to each other, in the way that twins were--still their own person, but feeling them together made it impossible to miss their relation.

Obi-Wan thought he wouldn’t like anything less than cloning a child army, but somehow he now did. Because cloning a child army to be docile as they were ordered to their deaths was...chilling.

The others were hot and cold on the subject. Worse, the Nulls and Alphas were, as well. They’d picked up on the idea that the new cadets were mass produced, would receive less direct training from Jango and some of the Cuy’val Dar, and had decided that they were _superior_ to them. It was a hard attitude to break anyone from, but especially children with so little to call their own.

He tried to instill, if nothing else, the idea of responsibility for younger generations. He spoke often of creche duty and teaching Initiates at the Temple. When he spent time with the new batches, giving the little ones affection and attention, it backfired, though, and the jealousy of some of the Alphas made him back-off again.

_Maybe_ there was something to be said about taking out more and more of the traits that made up Jango’s personality from the clones.

Even though it also made _Jango_ care less about the newer batches. If he was somewhat ambivalent to the Nulls and Alphas (which Obi-Wan could technically understand, as he wasn’t sure how he’d feel about even one clone of himself), he was outright dismissive of the newer generations. Whether it was because he truly didn’t think of them as children or because he was trying _not_ to for his own sanity, Obi-Wan wasn’t sure.

It had already been apparent Jango never interacted with the other clones the way he did Boba. With the one he chose as his son, he was a great father. He’d been tender when Boba was a baby, something Obi-Wan wouldn’t have said Jango was capable of. And he was patient and compassionate as Boba got older, teaching him personally as much as he could and having only his most trusted Cuy’val Dar instructing Boba on the rest.

There were times, when Jango was off on some job (or something else, he never gave very many details) for weeks and it was Obi-Wan taking care of Boba. That was worse, for the cadets, than seeing Obi-Wan with the younger generations. It’s not that they didn’t care for Boba, as one of their own, but of course they envied him--this sibling of theirs that was getting a real childhood, whose father wasn’t so dismissive and harsh towards him.

Obi-Wan understood that feeling. Though thinking of Jango and Qui-Gon as so similar in any way was dizzying. 

Trying to navigate the emotions of (technically pre-teen) kids left Obi-Wan acting in ways he knew probably hurt Boba at times, a hot-and-cold sort of attitude where, when it was just them (or them and Jango), Obi-Wan let his adoration for the little boy out. But when they were near cadets, he couldn’t do that to them, and he was more professional with Boba than he’d ever been with any of the others.

Out of all the things he and Jango fought over, that might have been one of the worst.

“I don’t _want_ to hurt Boba! But he has a buir--when he’s upset with me, he still has you. Only the Nulls have anything similar to that!”

“They’re not children! You do them no favors by treating them like they won’t be disposable when the Jedi collect them!”

"The Jedi will not see them as disposable! That's how _you_ feel! No one who can feel them in the Force would think they're the same as droids!" That shut Jango up for a few days.

Then Jango managed to wrangle out of one of the Force sensitive Alphas that the new batches felt different (and Obi-Wan didn't blame the child for thinking they felt too similar, he had not enough experience to know that didn't mean they felt the same). After that, he brought back the argument in full, the two of them screaming, throwing things, though only hitting each other when it got bad enough they needed to spar as an outlet.

"Why do you keep making excuses for the Jedi? After how they treated you?"

"What I say about them to you and what the full story is are two different things."

Jango flipped him over, getting him in a hold that Obi-Wan couldn't manage to break. 

"You want to go back to them? To being a Jedi? Want to crawl and beg for their forgiveness?" His anger burned in the Force and Obi-Wan flinched away not from it, but from the part of himself it threatened to awaken.

"No, I'm saying that I don't talk to you about the good times I had. The institution might be bad, that doesn't mean every individual is. Fuck, it's like seeing Priest and deciding all the rest of us are like him."

Jango shifted and the hold became tighter, more painful. Little gasps of breath were all Obi-Wan could manage and he knew if he didn't start using the Force to supplement his breathing he'd pass out sooner than later.

The frustrated near-growl Jango let out wasn't very comforting, but it prepared Obi-Wan when he was flipped onto his back, Jango settled over him like...well, like they were doing something very different than sparring.

"The Jedi who came to Galidraan couldn’t even see my people as sentients with the rights that entailed. Maybe there will be a few Jedi more like you, but it’s just as likely the cadets will get Jedi who aren’t. What happens to them when they aren’t ready to be treated like flesh droids?”

Obi-Wan sucked in deep breaths of air, dizzy from the sudden return of it. He felt too dizzy to come up with a good argument, which he assumed was why Jango used that method to subdue him in the first place.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a response to a drabble request from koramberlynne: "For Cuy'kaysh Dar, something with Obi-Wan in Mandalorian armor, if that's a thing that ever happens? What color(s), when he wears or is encouraged to wear it, etc.?"
> 
> This is set some years after Obi-Wan arrives on Kamino, which it says in the text but I wanted to make it clear lol

It starts with the vambraces.

They're waiting for him with his training equipment and for a moment he's absolutely terrified one of the others is trying to _court_ him. Then he notices how new they are and reminds himself that the Mandalorians exchange their own pieces of armor when they want to get hitched, they don't just hand off new ones.

Obi-Wan debates putting them on for a few moments as he quickly prepares for the day of training, weighing his options in his mind. They're _beskar_ , though, which means someone either has permission from Jango himself or they're trying to get him killed.

Knowing the others as he does, he leaves them where they were.

No one says anything, but they don't go anywhere, still in his locker every morning when he puts on the rest of his kit. Sometimes he picks them up, studies them. They're very well made and he knows just by looking that they'd fit perfectly.

He lands himself in the infirmary a few months later, a training simulation with some too-eager CTs gone wrong. His armor is wrecked, having taken most of the accidental explosion. Two days later, when he's technically still on medical leave but feeling fine, he shows up to train the cadets in clothes that closely resemble Jedi robes and claims that it's part of the training.

It takes a week before he opens his locker and with the vambraces is...everything else. A full set of _beskar'gam_ , in his size. 

"Blue for...reliability," he muttered, tracing his fingers over the paint. "And white for...purity?" No, that didn't sound right.

"A new start." Obi-Wan startled, having not realized he was so distracted he'd missed Jango entering the room.

They stared at each other for a moment before Jango moved forward, pulling out the _kute_ from the locker that would go under the _beskar'gam_. He held it out for Obi-Wan who knew exactly what was being offered.

It had been years, now, of dancing around each other. Jango's shielding was exemplary, but there was always the hints of desire, of want, when they were together that Obi-Wan tried his hardest not to respond to. If it had just been his body Jango wanted, Obi-Wan would have given in--the crude matter of his body was meant to serve him, after all, and keeping Jango happy was part of that. But he'd always felt something deeper to it than just sex.

"I'm not a Mandalorian."

Jango smirks. "You say, in Mando'a." Obi-Wan resists the urge to roll his eyes and the even greater urge to switch to Basic. "You know the words I want to hear from you, but they're hardly more than dressing, now. Speaking our language. Raising our children. Defending us when necessary. Contributing to our welfare. Answering the Mand'alor's call."

Taking a deep breath, Obi-Wan tried to release his tension into the Force. Like all Jedi techniques, it came harder to him now than it had before his Fall. 

The armor was still there beside them, mocking him. The very last tenant of the _Resol'nare_ that he wasn't, technically, following yet. The white blending in with the walls of the room.

_Cin vhetin_. A new start. A new start _as a Mandalorian_.

He looked back at Jango, who was still waiting so patiently, so knowingly. He'd had Obi-Wan on Kamino for so long, surrounded by Mandalorians, with no other support structure. It couldn't have worked out better for turning an ex-Jedi into a Mandalorian if Jango had planned it all from the very beginning.

Reaching out, Obi-Wan took the _kute_ from him, shoulders slumping. " _Vor entye, 'alor_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a:  
> Vor entye - thank you (literally "I accept this debt")  
> Alor - leader/chief/boss


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few people have been asking for more info on what Jango thinks of what's going on with Obi-Wan, so this gives a little

“What’s this?”

Obi-Wan jumped as a stack of flimsy was slammed on his desk, squinting towards it as his hands fumbled for his mug. The caf was disgusting at room temperature, but he clearly needed his wits.

He hated exam week.

“Those are...the essay assignments from the CCs?”

“On?”

Squinting at Jango, feeling like this was some sort of trick question, he hazarded, “...Jedi culture?”

“What the fuck does ‘the meaning behind Jedi wardrobe choices’ have to do with running an army?”

He gulped down more of the slurry of caf, rubbing his eyes. He hadn’t gotten to those, yet. Actually...he was pretty sure he’d used the favor Ward owed him to force him to do the initial corrections for grammar and whatever else he caught. It was cruel, but Ward was into history, so he figured some of the essays would appeal to him.

Which was probably why Jango was now in possession of the stack, because Ward was useless.

“The cadets got to choose the topic, it’s not about what’s useful, it was to teach them how to research Jedi topics effectively.”

Jango swore and Obi-Wan jumped at the unexpected leap of anger-worry that slipped through his normally impeccable shields. “You think your masochistic streak is cute?”

Sputtering, he grabbed up the stack of flimsy, shoving it in a drawer and hoping that Jango hadn’t read too far in any of the essays because Obi-Wan knew how the cadets could get. “What are you talking about?”

“Reading all those essays on Jedi culture? The shit that used to be _your_ culture? No one will believe you if you claim it’s healthy.”

He sucked in a breath. “It’s not...I’ve gotten over it, Jango. I understand why I was in the situation I was in and...and it’s not helping the kids for me to shy away from all things Jedi when it could help them survive.”

“Understand?! You did everything you could to save the closest thing you had to a father, you _saved his life_ , and they punished you for it. Were going to _kill you_ for it.”

Obi-Wan hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about Jango’s own issues. He knew them in the vague way anyone who studied Mandalore’s political history did, but he just hadn’t _considered_ them. He would have, before, and he curses himself for trying to move so far away from being the Jedi he had been that he had let that skill fall to the wayside.

Because Jango had lost his father on a battlefield--Jaster Mereel had died to a plot by Death Watch and Jango had been helpless to save him.

What he must be willing to give, to go back and do it all over. What he must be willing to _become_.

Of course he believed Obi-Wan had done the right thing. What did a Mandalorian care about the difference between the Light and the Dark? Someone from a culture that had historically sided with the _Sith_? Who was currently part of a Sith plot to destroy the foundations of the modern Jedi Order?

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Jango knew he couldn’t, Obi-Wan had told him the truth early enough that he’d still been resentful of the Order, “tell me they weren’t going to _kill you_ for effectively neutralizing an enemy?”

Obi-Wan still remembered watching the Sith’s head fall to the floor, his _sai cha_ perfectly executed as soon as he had the opening. He’d been _so fast_ , had felt _so strong_ with the Dark side gleefully singing through his body. The fight had lasted for mere seconds after he’d given into his anger.

Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night, feeling like he’d just re-lived it, the temperature controls in his room desperately attempting to combat the sudden dip to freezing cold. He’d huddle in the fresher, squeezing his eyes shut, and focus on the fact _Qui-Gon had lived_ and that made it all worth it.

He’d promised he wouldn’t Fall.

It wasn’t a promise anyone could actually make. Before that very moment, nothing would have made him use the Dark. Before his Master was about to be killed by a Sith who shouldn’t exist and he was cut off from him.

If he could go back and do it again...he still would. Of course he would. But if he could go back further...he’d tell Xanatos he understood. There were things too great not to Fall for.

Though, that still didn’t make him forgive Dooku.

“I broke a law. As Mand’alor, you should understand that requires punishment, even if it was done for a good reason.”

“No,” Jango denied, “the reason _matters_. And the extent of how you broke the law matters. I’ve heard you with Tyrannus, you _barely_ did anything.”

And now Obi-Wan had to be even more paranoid about what sort of surveillance he was under, because he never had a single conversation about the Dark with Dooku anywhere near Jango.

“It’s something that forever taints me. I’m a traitor.”

He’d been distracted by his own feelings enough that he didn’t notice how close Jango had gotten until his hands were on Obi-Wan’s shoulders. “They didn’t deserve you.”

“But you do?” He tried to keep his voice playful, but he was sure it failed.

“I’m trying to.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a work after this one that will have extra details (kind of like I did with ASOLAD). Right now it has some Mando'a and a brief description of all the Cuy'val Dar I've used (and pictures to go off of for them).
> 
> This chapter has a little more mentions of abusive activities involving children than normal, though all canonical level stills (ugh, right?).

Mij was upset. The sort of upset that radiated out from him, filling the air around the medical offices and making Obi-Wan feel as though he was wading through the emotion as he approached.

He got a glimpse of a few cadets laid up on his way and tried to figure out _why_ , because as far as he knew none of the trainers were running any of the more dangerous simulations. They never did the week before Jango was scheduled to return, wanting their particular cadets in the best shape to show off.

“What’s going on?” he asked as soon as he stepped into Mij’s private office, the door sliding shut automatically behind him.

The other trainer looked somewhere between devastated and homicidal, a shaking hand clenching a glass of tihaar. The bottle beside it was significantly emptier than it had been the last time Obi-Wan had seen it and he made a note to requisition a few more.

“Fucking Priest and Reau,” was the initial, muttered response.

Obi-Wan frowned. “They’re running rough sims right now? They’re always on Fett’s bad side, why would they be risking that?”

The hysterical-sounding laugh Mij gave made Obi-Wan jump. “It’s not training. It’s a kriffing _fight club_ in one of the unused areas. They have the kids _beating each other to death._ ”

He sucked in a breath, rocking back as if taking a hit. No wonder Mij was so upset, if the cadets were _dying_. Most of them went out of their way to keep them alive, not the other way around, and Mij would be one of the last people to see them if they were hurt that badly.

“Why didn’t you know?” The accusation in Mij’s voice was fair.

Grimacing, he muttered, “I filter most of the training--anything that feels like fighting--out, if I didn’t I’d be feeling children in pain constantly. I’d go mad.” It was bad enough, just knowing what they were doing to the cadets. 

Some of them had discussed what they could do for them, including Mij, but it always ended in heartbreak as they realized the answer was _nothing_ , at least not yet. Not with a Sith contract binding them. Not with Kamino so locked down. 

Having to wait until the cadets went to war to try to free any of them was awful. He’d had to talk Bralor down from murdering Dooku to see if it broke the contract multiple times, if only because they had no idea what sort of contingency plans were in place.

“Fucking do better, Ben! You’re the only sort of early warning we have when those Death Watch fucks pull shit like this!”

“It’s not just them, Vau terrifies the cadets!” Obi-Wan pointed out, though he realized he probably wasn’t making the situation any better. “Listen,” he took deep, steadying breaths, making it obvious, trying to get Mij to copy him, “we know it’s happening now, we’ll stop it. _And_ I’ll tell Fett as soon as he gets back.”

Mij rolled his eyes. “Fett. As if he cares, he’s the one that brought them here.”

“He did. He focused on who would train the cadets in what he wanted them trained in, he never thought beyond that. But he also realizes getting trained cadets killed for entertainment is a bad thing.”

There were only three ways Obi-Wan could see this ending, and one involved him and Mij arranging “accidental” deaths for at least two other trainers. If Jango didn’t appreciate that, then he’d deserve whatever issues losing some of the Cuy’val Dar created for him.

He pressed a hand over Mij’s, waiting until their eyes met. “We’ll deal with this. Even if that means running interference and letting Bralor and Skirata at them. But until then, we’re not helpless. Show me who’s worse off, I’ll heal what I can.”

***

They raided the “Battle Circle” that night at Bralor’s insistence, Obi-Wan having gotten one of the CCs to give them more details for a bar of chocolate from the trainers’ supplies.

There was a fairly large amount of cadets at the fight club, some already bloody and bruised. Over a dozen trainers, mostly Death Watch aligned and a few of the non-Mandalorians, were arranged around them looking like spectators at a meshgeroya match. If it hadn’t been Obi-Wan bursting through the door, lightsabers in hand, with some of the most intimidating Cuy’val Dar at his back, he thought they might have fought back.

If they’d waited for Jango to return, he would have taken care of it in his own way, maybe single combat and beating Priest to a pulp. And there would have been some satisfaction found in that, forcing someone from Death Watch to surrender to the rightful Mand’alor. But this way the cadets knew the fight club wasn’t being shut down because Fett didn’t like wasted product, but because there were adults who cared. Adults who were enraged.

Like most of Death Watch, Priest was brave when he had the upper hand and a coward when he didn’t. Reau was different, spitting mad and looking ready to try to take them all on, but she was not that much of a fool. They were all trapped on Kamino together, if she fought back she’d get nothing but hostility for the rest of their contract.

It was a good thing she was a medic, because he doubted Mij would ever treat any of the trainers there and the others would follow his lead.


	16. Chapter 16

Wearing beskar’gam, his _own_ beskar’gam and not stolen or borrowed suits while on the run with Satine, was an unexpected experience.

He knew how to take it on and off, but the ease at which that happened surprised even him. Muscle memory from years ago coming back to him nearly as soon as he started putting on the new armor.

Not that it was exactly how the Kyr’tsad armor had been--however Jango had gotten his measurements, it all fit perfectly and was adjusted already to allow for his combat style. Beskar’gam itself wasn’t awful for a Jedi, as it was often designed for aerial combat, but the reinforcement because of a jetpack was unnecessary for Force movements.

It felt solid, in the way the armor he’d been wearing hadn’t. Stable, in a way he knew was probably just him projecting. 

Obi-Wan hadn’t expected to feel one way or the other about it, but he _liked_ it.

Or maybe it was just that he liked, finally, being a Mandalorian.

Dooku didn’t definitely like the armor. The look in his eyes when he’d first seen Obi-Wan in it, the glare he’d shot at Jango, had been clear to anyone watching. But there was nothing he could do about it, not and still keep on Obi-Wan’s good side.

He wondered if it was the reminder of Galidraan, but that made no sense when Dooku worked perfectly well with the last survivor. Then he wondered if it was simply because a Mandalorian wasn’t a Sith and that’s what Dooku wanted out of him.

But then he decided that it was because Dooku had wanted to be the one to take Obi-Wan and isolate him, keep him away from outside influences and help him become what Dooku wanted him to be. Jango had gotten to Obi-Wan, first, though, had gotten to do all of what Dooku had surely wanted, in an even better environment for it than Dooku could have probably managed.

There were 75 Mandalorian trainers that Obi-Wan was nearly always around, there was Jango and Boba, and there were the hundreds, then thousands, then more, of cadets who were all learning a sort of bastardized Mandalorian culture. Even if Obi-Wan hadn’t already known the language and so many of the customs, he probably wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Obi-Wan knew what was being done to him. He didn’t care to stop it, though. 

***

The cadets were fascinated by his armor. They’d been taught of the Resol’nare, of Cin Vhetin, of what it meant to be a Mandalorian according to the traditional values, and had seen plenty of the other trainers in their armor. 

“But,” Alpha-17 admitted, drawing a tentative hand over Obi-Wan’s bracers when given permission, “we always thought of you as a Mandalorian, already, I guess. You acted like them, more than the others.”

“Fair,” Obi-Wan admitted, thinking of how some of the other non-Mandalorian Cuy’val Dar had doubled down on their own cultures to separate themselves. 

Meanwhile, the Basic he spoke to the cadets now felt odd on Obi-Wan’s tongue.

The too-old five year old frowned, studying Obi-Wan in a way that made him feel like he was digging through too much of what Obi-Wan was trying to hide. “Why now?”

He shrugged. “Fett decided it. He brought me the armor.”

That was answered with a sage nod--none of the cadets _liked_ Fett, but they recognized his ultimate authority over themselves _and_ the trainers. The older ones were even starting to suspect that the Cuy’val Dar was trapped with them, that they couldn’t leave even if they wanted to, from the off-hand comments they had made over the years. It was creating an odd camaraderie that Obi-Wan wasn’t sure what to do with.

“Wait,” Alpha-17’s eyes were wide as he stared up at Obi-Wan, “he _gave you armor_?”

“Not like _that_.”

It was clear he wasn’t believed and clearer still that all the cadets would probably believe by the end of the night cycle that he and Jango were engaged.


	17. Chapter 17

Jango hovered over Obi-Wan on the training mats, their eyes locked, and Obi-Wan imagined him leaning down, pressing their lips together. He thought, from the way Jango’s gaze flickered to his mouth, the other felt the same.

But, not for the first time, nothing happened. Jango pushed his advantage, Obi-Wan tapped out, and the spar was over.

“I’ve heard interesting rumors,” Jango said, casually, as they cleaned up the training area.

Jango had only just gotten back from some job or another, he hadn’t been around for the _worst_ of it. When the cadets had let their theory about Obi-Wan’s armor slip to the Cuy’val Dar. 

Suddenly he was being asked about when the wedding feast was, if he was going to formally adopt Boba, which of the titles for a Mand’alor’s spouse he meant to use. The trainers who had known Jaster started “testing” him, manhandling him into successively more dangerous spars and making him run through some of the more creative training courses.

He was suddenly in possession of multiple datapads of “proper” Mandalorian recipes, none of which agreed with each other (and if he kept the one from Cort somewhere he could reference it later, no one needed to know that). He was locked out of his quarters for hours until he realized someone had moved him to Jango’s in the city records. 

When he was running interference on that, he found his name in every single part of the system had been changed to “Ben Fett.” And that there was a relationship in the database that connected he and Jango as definitely more than just an employer and his employee. He’d had to enlist a snickering group of cadet slicers to take care of the virus that kept _changing it back_ whenever he corrected it.

Obi-Wan was well and truly done with the “interesting rumors” Jango was just hearing.

“For as much as there is to do around here, people still get bored. Rumors are bound to happen. Nothing to be upset about.” He shrugged, doing his best to look like _he_ didn’t care.

The look he got was all heat and...maybe yearning. “I definitely wasn’t upset.” He gave a shrug of his own, walking into the locker room.

And there it was again, the way Jango would push and push and not _do_ anything. Not really. He’d given Obi-Wan an _entire suit_ of beskar’gam and had the entire city thinking they were going to get _married_ and wasn’t doing _anything_.

Though, Obi-Wan hadn’t, either.

When Obi-Wan noticed they were alone in the locker room, he felt his resolve to just keep letting it go, to allow the tension to build until it broke, crumble.

“Why don’t you ever….”

Jango turned towards him, half out of his armor and most likely knowing exactly what that did to Obi-Wan. “Ever?”

“Do anything.”

“Do what?”

He let out a frustrated noise, resisting the urge to flail. “Kiss me,” was the first thing that came to mind, even as his thoughts rushed through a dozen very racy scenarios. 

The smile he received was downright predatory and as Jango stalked towards him he almost started backing away. “Is that what you want, Ben’ika?”

Obi-Wan took a deep breath. “Maybe?”

“Maybe? Or yes?”

Jango wrapped his arms around Obi-Wan, leaning up the short distance until their faces were matched, but still did not kiss him.

“...Is that what this is? You were waiting for me to ask?”

“Am I wrong to?”

“No. _No_. It’s just...unexpected. You seem the type to take what you want.”

“You’re not a _thing_ to take, Obi-Wan, no matter what your _masters_ ,” he spit the word, as he often did, no matter how many times Obi-Wan emphasized the difference, “taught you. If all I can have from you is you at my side, fighting for me, I’ll accept that.”

Sometimes, Obi-Wan wondered exactly what Jango had faced in his years as a slave. Most of the time, he thought he probably didn’t want to know anymore than Jango wanted to tell him.

“...I want you.” He flushed, but the way something lightened on Jango’s face made him keep going. “I’ve wanted you for...ages.”

“Ages?” he teased.

“A few years.”

Jango shook his head. “My poor, repressed dar’jetii. All the fun we could have been having.”

But he still didn’t kiss him.

***

For all he didn’t think Jango bothered with seduction normally, he was very good at it. Little touches, heated looks, that edge of danger throughout it all that Obi-Wan found distractingly enticing.

So it was Obi-Wan who initiated their first kiss--which was probably exactly how Jango had planned it.

Obi-Wan had been frustrated, all but yelling at Jango about the cadets’ recent training, and Jango had been right there in his face, not raising his voice but just as hostile. One moment, Obi-Wan was debating trying for a punch, whether with Force-enhanced speed he could get a hit or two in before Jango countered. The next, Jango had said something that had made Obi-Wan’s vision go red with anger.

If fear led to anger, he was starting to think anger led to other forms of passion, not just hate. Maybe that was still a reason Yoda disapproved of it. 

He pushed and Jango thought he was going in for an attack, they grappled, fell onto a nearby couch, and then...then Obi-Wan slammed him lips down on Jango’s.

After _years_ he was sick of denying that he did want something. Even half the Jedi hadn’t kept chaste and he wasn’t one of them anymore. Jango wanted him, _someone_ wanted him, and it was the best feeling in the world.


	18. Chapter 18

“You and the Duchess, huh?”

Obi-Wan realized they both must be very, very drunk if Skirata was bringing up something like relationships. Looking over at the Nulls huddled in their own little corner of the room after their grueling day of training, carefully not watching them, he thought he knew why. Skirata never talked about his wife, but half the Mandalorians had known and another half of those weren’t shy about gossiping with ‘Ben’. 

He used the Force to grab the bottle of tihaar they’d been working their way through, filling his glass. Maybe it wasn’t smart, to be getting this drunk and spilling so much of his past, but it had been so long since he _could_. And here, surrounded by so many things that made him remember that year, he _wanted_ to.

“It was supposed to be a month or two, ended up a year. I was...seventeen to eighteen. It’s not that I’d never liked anyone before,” Cerasi, Siri, Quinlan...if anything he’d liked more people than was appropriate for a Jedi, “but I was with her nearly all the time and our lives were...intense. On the run, rarely feeling safe, having to struggle just for food and shelter most of the time.

“I fell in love with her along the way. And at the same time...I fell in love with Mandalore. Then, at some point, the Mandalore I loved and the Mandalore Satine loved diverged. Maybe there were one too many close calls. Maybe she had to watch me kill one too many assassins. Maybe something happened to her when I was infiltrating a Death Watch cell. I don’t know.” He took another long pull of his drink, numb to the burning now. “I would have stayed if she’d asked me to--I loved being a Jedi, but I could have loved being a Mandalorian. In the end, I’m glad she didn’t, though, because I would have hated every moment of being a New Mandalorian.”

Skirata felt _sad_ after Obi-Wan’s drink-fueled monologue. He almost looked it, too, when Obi-Wan managed to focus on his face.

“Some people...they can’t appreciate the culture. All they see is...violence.” Skirata was staring into the distance and Obi-Wan knew he wasn’t seeing the white walls of a lounge in Tipoca City.

“But _she_ should have known better. She was the one that taught me some of it.” He hunched over his glass, staring into the liquid even though he knew it would give him no more answers than any alcohol ever had. “I was the one that saw more violence than anything else while I was there.” He felt his mood dip again and he wondered, miserably, “Is it me? Is there something wrong with me?”

The last was soft, or at least he thought it was, but maybe it wasn’t, because Ordo was tucking against his right side and Mereel against his left. The move made him chuckle, wrapping his arms around them in turn. There wasn’t a single cadet he hadn’t cuddled at some point in their early childhood and most of them didn’t let him forget it.

He should have watched his wording--the cadets, and the Nulls especially, knew even more intimately what it was like to question their inherent worth. They would have been killed at _two_ if Skirata and Fett hadn’t intervened.

Glancing up, he found Skirata watching them, a sort of soft look on his face that he got sometimes around the cadets who were basically his sons. “There’s _nothing_ wrong with you,” he finally said. “What’s wrong is the people who judge a whole culture by the worst parts of it. That look at Mandalorians and think we’re animals.”

_Like your wife,_ he just manages not to say. Obi-Wan cared about the cadets like he might Initiates, some of them even to the level he’d surely love a Padawan, and he aches knowing they’d all be taken away someday. Skirata had his own children taken away--collecting cadets didn’t somehow fill that void.

“Force, we’re depressing,” he muttered, after spending a moment getting his mouth to cooperate. “Should have invited Apma, he’s always good for a laugh.”

Skirata snorted, then coughed because he’d been in the middle of taking the drink, and the rest of them laughed at him. Jaing had appeared next to them at some point, too, and he thumped Skirata’s back hard enough he’d probably be bruised in the morning.

The Nulls might have been young teens, physically, but they had a genetically engineered metabolism that was keeping them far more coherent than Obi-Wan liked. Everything they did, he was sure, was as carefully coordinated as it ever was.

“I don’t know what Rav’s on about, Kal, you’re a great guy.”

That made Skirata sputter again, demanding to know what gossip Bralor was spreading around about when they were younger commandos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skirata's (old at least) backstory is basically that he became a Mandalorian, eventually got married, had some kids, and when he went to raise them in the proper Mandalorian way (which was taking them into dangerous situations way too young lol) his wife left and took the kids to protect them. After getting to Kamino, he (and Jango) save the Nulls from getting decommissioned and he trains them extremely thoroughly, and adopts them. So the parallel here is that Skirata feels like his wife and Satine are similar (and, obviously, wrong lol).


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was accepting prompts on Tumblr for this for a little while and this one came from user ardentmystacina: 
> 
> "Cuy’kaysh Dar: The familiarity of eating Mandalorian cuisine again after so long, and having a quiet craving that is soothed by the difficult-to-replicate flavours."
> 
> Also, I created [a Discord server for my works](https://discord.gg/KGVqMGm)! Discussions, spoilers, extra info, obsessing over certain random characters most people don't even care about, all the usual stuff haha

Jango’s latest return came with a resupply of spices that had been on shopping lists for what felt like half a year at that point. The food on Kamino wasn’t the worst (and the trainers got far better than the cadets), but it was _bland_. Even the non-Mandalorians were starting to complain.

The first night, Jango invited Obi-Wan back to his apartment and he knew better than to refuse. As soon as he walked in the door, the flavorful scents of vaguely familiar food hit him and he took in a deep breath before moving towards the table.

“This looks delicious.”

“Taste it, first, then I’ll accept compliments,” Jango insisted, starting to serve Boba from the shared dishes in the center of the table as Obi-Wan sat down.

It was even better than Obi-Wan had expected, the flavor bursting in his mouth, nearly searing his tongue. He must have let out a pleased noise, because Jango gave him a look that was far, far too intense for a dinner with his son.

“This is _very_ good.”

“You should teach ge’buir how to make it, buir!”

Obi-Wan felt the world tilt at the title, only slightly less serious than naming him a parent outright. On the other side of the table, Jango’s face was doing something very unflattering that the Force told Obi-Wan was him being stuck between smug pleasure and laughing at Obi-Wan’s own reaction.

“Just...just ‘Ben’ is fine, Boba.”

Instead of the acknowledgement he’d been expecting, Boba turned on him with wide, teary eyes. “But if you and buir marry, won’t you be my buir, too?”

Squashing down the suspicion he felt, Obi-Wan placed a hand on Boba’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “I’m sorry, Bob’ika. I’m not marrying your buir.”

“You’re not?” The shout from Boba almost covered up a noise from Jango.

Obi-Wan looked at him, narrowing his eyes. “No. It would be very awkward, to be married to my superior.”

“So you’re not marrying buir _now_ , but you _will_?”

“Arguably, as the Mand’alor, he’ll always be my superior.” His tone was placid, but he kept staring at Jango as he spoke.

Jango stared right back. “Marriage is a partnership. A Mand’alor might outrank their spouse politically and militarily, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t equal in the marriage.”

It was not good, how warm that made him feel inside. “Regardless, it’s far too early, Boba, for your buir and I to be thinking of marriage. We,” he searched for an innocent word to use and resigned himself to the first one that came to mind, “just started dating. I would need years of _that_ , before I could consider marriage.”

Boba glanced between the two of them, his shoulders slumping a little. “Years? Like...like two?”

Force, but it was unnerving sometimes, seeing how adorable Boba was while Jango’s presence loomed nearby, knowing he had once looked like that.

“Let’s revisit it once this contract is over,” he said, instead of giving a firm answer.

Jango looked pleased with Obi-Wan making plans to discuss his relationship with Boba, even if he wasn’t including Jango himself. Mandalorians were family, and especially child, oriented enough that Obi-Wan had a sinking feeling he’d just done something _right_ as far as future marriage was concerned.

***

The best part about the return to more traditional foods around the trainers’ section was the distraction it provided all of them. Enough that Obi-Wan thought Jango might have planned the long absence of flavor and the sudden return of it to coincide with his final push on Obi-Wan’s defenses.

Not a single other trainer had seemed to notice that Jango and Obi-Wan were _actually_ together. Instead, it wasn’t uncommon to spend free time in the break rooms, trying each other’s cooking and letting out entirely inappropriate noises that possibly had the Kaminoans believing orgies were taking place behind closed doors.

Obi-Wan offered his assistance, mortified to realize the only dishes he recognized enough to help were the Concordian dishes Reau was preparing--his time spying on Death Watch had sometimes meant infiltrating their bases and while he had no fondness for the organization, he could admit to favoring their food.

“This is _true_ traditional Mandalorian fare!” Reau stated, pleased at how easily he fell into the rhythm of preparing a stew that had been a staple on the mining world. “Recipes we kept when the dar’manda in Sundari forced us off Manda’yaim.”

After that dinner, Jango cornered him and gave him a kiss edged in anger as delicious to Obi-Wan’s senses as the food had been. 

“I hate that you know _their_ recipes,” he admitted, when pressed, “but knowing you can cook Mandalorian food of any kind….” Another heated kiss let Obi-Wan know more than words can how that sentence would finish. “I’ll teach you proper cooking, you and Bob’ika can learn together.”

If it had been Obi-Wan attempting to seduce Jango, he’d know how to go about it.


	20. Chapter 20

“You _killed_ Komari Vosa? _Dooku_ had you kill Komari Vosa?”

Jango gave him a blank look. “Not entirely, but yes, that’s what he hired me for.”

The world tilted around Obi-Wan as his mind tried to wrap around that thought. Dooku was Dark, Komari Vosa had been Dark, Obi-Wan should not be so surprised, and yet….

With how far Qui-Gon had gone to avoid killing Xanatos, how obsessed he’d been with him, he might have been assuming that came from Dooku. That Qui-Gon’s own Master had taught him that form of attachment.

It was silly now, in retrospect. Dooku cared about his former Padawans, that much showed in how careful he was with Obi-Wan as his grandpadawan, but Vosa was a failure to him in a way Obi-Wan couldn’t have been. And, if rumors were to be believed about just why she failed, probably one he’d rather not have to think about.

“What’s that look for?”

He turned his attention back to Jango. “Do you know who she was to him?”

“His student, right?” Jango knew how important Master-Padawan relationships were, so Obi-Wan could only assume he didn’t think Dooku capable of such closeness to begin with.

But trying to imagine Dooku and Jango having some sort of heart-to-heart was difficult, half the time they seemed minutes away from deciding the clone army wasn’t worth it and killing the other. “He told _you_ that?” 

Jango shrugged. “Who knows why he does anything. Hunting her down was my test for getting this job.”

That, Obi-Wan could almost understand--everything he’d heard about the Bando Gora and Vosa once she was its leader pointed to them being a serious threat. “So you killed her for him to get this job?”

“He killed her. Did that choking thing you can do.” Jango rubbed his neck as if imagining what it would feel like. “Getting to her got me a lot of credits, but this job...that was something else.”

“It’s not much of a legacy, an army of clones for the Republic. Even if they make a bad gift.”

Their eyes locked and Obi-Wan could almost see the wheels spinning in Jango’s mind as he weighed telling Obi-Wan more of his plans or not. Like every other time, he hesitated.

They weren’t just there to discredit the Jedi. All the standard cadets were being made so subservient to just the idea of the Jedi that Obi-Wan was starting to doubt they were the ones meant to take out the Masters and Knights, if that was the plan. There was something he was missing.

Whatever Obi-Wan had to do to prove he was trustworthy enough to be told, he was almost scared to find out.

***

“You killed Vosa.”

Dooku actually faltered, just enough for Obi-Wan to get in a strike that would have been a killing blow, if he didn’t turn his shoto off at the last second.

“Fett told you of that?”

They stepped away, getting drinks of water and stretching out a little from the tension of the match, before going again. This time, the topic wouldn’t be enough to distract Dooku, but Obi-Wan didn’t let up on it.

“He did. He said it was his test for this. Galidraan hadn’t been enough of one?”

A grimace flitted across Dooku’s face. “That was the reason I initially thought of him for the position, it is true. An army of Jango Fetts at his prime.”

Obi-Wan would argue Jango had most likely only gotten more dangerous with age, but held back. He did wonder what some of the Nulls or Alphas would be like against him once they were in their twenties, physically, with the specialized training he wouldn’t have had then.

“An army of _obedient_ Jango Fetts, raised to follow Jedi. Where does that come in?”

This time he didn’t parry fast enough, the point of Dooku’s lightsaber a hair's breadth away from his chest. He felt naked without his armor on, but kept his expression calm. They broke away from each other again, Obi-Wan falling back into a Soresu guard, waiting.

“The Jedi will fail themselves _and_ fail the Republic. Very few of those remaining in the Order have seen large scale conflict, most of them in the form of holding out against a siege, not leading an attack.” Dooku struck--he was patient, but Makashi wasn’t about waiting indefinitely as Soresu could be. “Perhaps they’ll regret chasing you away, grandpadawan, when they realize what skills they’re missing.”

Obi-Wan grimaced. 

His abilities at warfare were hard won--Melida/Daan, then the return from Melida/Daan when he was desperate to learn as much as he could _just in case_ it was ever repeated, and his year long mission on Mandalore during their civil war, helping both the forces fighting for the Duchess and infiltrating Death Watch and learning their tactics. They were atypical experiences for a Jedi and the only event he could think of in recent history that was similar to the Jedi going to war...was the disastrous Yinchorri Uprising.

Was that what the plan was? Convince the Jedi they had overwhelming force through bad intelligence? Give them a false sense of superiority with their large, well trained army, and then annihilate them?

He hated the very idea of it, because it implied that the cadets would be dying alongside the Jedi in massive numbers. 

That distraction, too, cost him the match, and he gasped out a, “Solah!” to end it. A glance at the chrono on the wall revealed they’d been sparring for much longer than he’d thought, too distracted to notice they’d eaten into the time he’d normally be taking last meal. 

Dooku, too, seemed to have noticed, and invited Obi-Wan back to his ship, where servants would have prepared food for him. The whole thing felt overly decadent after so long living among the Cuy’val Dar, but Obi-Wan easily fell back into the manners he had learned at the Temple. The approval he felt from Dooku, that Dooku quite obviously let through his shields, almost had him sighing and becoming sloppier. Almost.

“Once your contract is up, I hope you consider staying on Serenno, at least for a time. You could think of it as a holiday.”

“I’ll consider it,” he said, as he did with all such offers, never giving a definite answer. 

There were still years left before he would be forced to and time yet to find out just how much he should be trusting him (or Jango).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Solah" is the term used for "surrender" by the Jedi during spars.
> 
> Komari Vosa was Dooku's last Padawan before he left the Order, she was at Galidraan and claimed to have killed many Mandalorians there. She was refused Knighthood and eventually got kidnapped/brainwashed by the Bando Gora cult. She's Jango's main target in his video game.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From when I had tumblr prompts open, this one came from an anon: "The Mandalorian affinity for children. Literally any interaction with Jango, Obi-Wan and Boba, where Obi-Wan and Boba are bonding and Jango is watching. Cue Jango being extremely self-satisfied."

As Jango cooked the latest meal for them, Obi-Wan walked Boba through one of the courses he and Llats had developed for the kid based on their assignments for the cadets. It wasn’t perfect--Boba wouldn’t need to know half of what they did and vice versa, but it was a starting point.

Thankfully, the Mandalorians and Jedi had lots of conflicts to teach that met Jango’s approval as far as curriculum for his son went--as long as Obi-Wan taught that sort of thing while Jango was nearby, a ridiculous constraint considering Jango rarely even paid attention to what they were doing.

Boba was leaning against Obi-Wan on the couch, his head resting on Obi-Wan’s shoulder as they looked over one of the recent texts and Obi-Wan quizzed him on what he’d learned from the strategies highlighted there. After so many years of the Fett refusal to accept personal space as a thing, Obi-Wan didn’t even try to stop Boba, even if he was starting to get old enough that it would have been considered highly inappropriate to still cuddle in the creche.

He didn’t actually know how long Jango had been standing next to the table, staring down at them, but when he looked up he was there. Obi-Wan met his eyes, caught by their intensity, only escaping when Boba slid off of him and hurried to get in his seat for dinner.

“He’s doing well for his age.”

Obi-Wan nodded automatically, and then with more determination. “He is. Though, that’s hardly a surprise, considering he’s _your_ son.” Boba was a little behind where the cadets were at that physical age, but as he was supposed to be an exact copy of Jango and not one that was manipulated, that wasn’t a surprise.

The compliment earned him a brief, chaste kiss before Jango pulled him over to the food. The entire apartment had been filled with its scent for the last hour, Obi-Wan glad he’d actually bothered with lunch so he wasn’t drooling over it.

He was hit, not for the first time, by how ridiculously domestic the whole scene was. Traitorous thoughts in his head pointing out how easy it would be to make this his life, his family. 

But giving up on avoiding attachments and flinging himself into marriage with someone as morally questionable as Jango Fett were two different things.

***

The others had finally caught on that he and Jango were dating. Not that they could have missed it, since the sign came in the form of an intimate Keldabe kiss after a training session that was as harsh on the Cuy’val Dar as it was on the cadets.

There’d been the usual wolf whistles and inappropriate comments, up until Jango had looked towards them and they’d hurried to get away. Someday one of them was going to push him too far and Obi-Wan wouldn’t be there to talk him down from making an example of them through rampant violence.

Maybe, by then, he wouldn't even want to.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another somewhat lighthearted chapter! (uhoh lol)
> 
> [Reminder that I have a discord for my fanfic (and Alpha-17 fanclub) where I discuss stuff (including giving out spoilers and answer questions!)](https://discord.gg/YCgQqGx)

Of all the things that Obi-Wan had prepared himself for, as far as the cadets went, the sudden onslaught of puberty was not one of them. The Nulls and Alphas hadn’t been too bad, their less strict genetic manipulation meaning they didn’t all reach puberty at the exact same time and their lesser numbers making any negative effects easier to ignore.

The standard cadets, though...that was something else entirely. And Obi-Wan thought he was worse off than most of the Cuy’val Dar who dealt with them directly, because he had to feel it in the _Force_. The odd flashes of lust, the anger over sudden clumsiness, the _interest_ certain cadets were developing in some of the trainers.

Including him.

Somehow especially him.

He thought he might blame Jango for that--the cadets knew he was their template, of course, which meant some of them might think they should be attracted to the sort of people he was attracted to. It didn’t help that Jango often kept a proprietary touch on him now when they were in a room together, even if the cadets were around.

Some of Obi-Wan’s students leaked their dreams so loudly that he saw mortifying glimpses of himself in them.

He’d taken to sleeping less, shielding more. How long could puberty even take for fast growing clones? 

***

The answer was the better part of _two years_. For _each batch_.

Admittedly, they got better at controlling themselves, for the most part. And Obi-Wan got much, much better at shielding his mind against the unintentional projections from the Force sensitive cadets.

But it was two years of trying to ignore their awkwardly timed overreactions to his touches or praise. Two years of watching them go from gangly kids who didn’t know what to do with their bodies to gangly kids who thought they knew what to do with their bodies. When a few of them tried _flirting_ with him he felt like he was dying inside.

Was this how the Masters at the Temple felt when the Padawans got crushes on them?

If he ever saw Master Tholme again, he might have to apologize.

***

Obi-Wan’s only consolation prize was that Jango, who had originally found it hilarious when Obi-Wan complained, became less and less amused the longer it went on.

Because every squeaky voice, every trip-over-their-own-feet, every weird moment of growth when the cadets didn’t quite look like they fit together right, was now a joke at Jango’s expense. No decent holos of Jango still existed from that time period, but Obi-Wan didn’t need them to make fun of him.

He and some of the other trainers, the ones bold enough or with good enough relationships with Jango to risk it, had taken to spending a few minutes at the monthly meetings telling embarrassing stories about the cadets. They called every one of them “Little Jango” with the excuse that they didn’t want to single out any specific cadet, it would be cruel to give their real names, after all.

Better, even, was detailing every single thing that Jango might need to be ready for, when Boba finally hit that age, and the knowledge that _his_ puberty wouldn’t be artificially fast.

It didn’t stop the horrific exposure to thousands of pubescent kids, but it certainly made the two years pass by a little faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, I think this had to have been the singular worst part of being on Kamino, right? Like could you _imagine_ all those kids hitting puberty together? Those poor cleaning droids!


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realizes because of the way I normally play with Obi-Wan's age that I'd made the age difference between he and Jango (that exists solely in my head because I don't think I've ever mentioned Obi-Wan's age in this lol) extra awkward and have made an adjusted timeline I'll be leaving in the Holocron.

Obi-Wan didn’t mean for Jango to _ever_ find out he’d been more than just Satine’s protector. But he’d grown complacent on Kamino, casual in his conversations with the other Cuy’val Dar, and the slip-up had come in the middle of a cu'bikad game, when Vhonte was cussing him out for winning again.

“Think you’re a hot shot for fucking the Mand’alor?” she'd teased, so lighthearted that Obi-Wan didn’t even think about checking his reply.

“Please, vod, it’s not like he’s the first Mandalorian leader I’ve fucked.”

Half the room went silent, the other half was mostly coughing on the drinks and food they’d just accidentally inhaled. He winced, glancing around as he felt through the others through the Force--most of them just seemed shocked, but not offended.

And most of the ones who were offended (and that was, Obi-Wan knew, solely because they knew he meant Duchess Kryze specifically give his past) weren’t the type who would go ratting him out.

Regretfully, a few of them were and he didn’t see any way short of threatening them (which would surely backfire) to get them to stay quiet.

***

The day Jango returned to Kamino, Obi-Wan made himself busy.

He’d been braced for the confrontation for hours by the time it happened, carefully tucking away his tension behind his shields as he ran through extra voluntary practices with the cadets as a distraction.

Jango waited until after last meal to slink his way into Obi-Wan’s apartment, his shields locked down tight and his face even colder than his presence.

“You fucked her?”

Obi-Wan winced. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes, then.”

He took a deep breath, moving through his kitchen to clean up from his solo meal. “I was eighteen, she was beautiful, we’d been practically alone with each other for months.”

Jango followed him as he moved, crowding his space, but not actively interfering. The silence stretched on for entire minutes, before Obi-Wan gave up puttering around and moved over to collapse on his couch.

“You knew I knew her.”

“I didn’t know you’d been _with_ her. Did you love her?”

Narrowing his eyes up at Jango, he stretched out his senses in the Force, trying to pick out any hints of what was going on in Jango’s head. “Why were you more concerned about the sex than that?”

“Because you don’t love her anymore.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t I?”

A brief flash of aggravation slipped through the Force. “If you did, you wouldn’t be with one of her enemies.” Jango knelt on the couch beside Obi-Wan, leaning over him. “You’re not the type to betray the people you love.”

His breath caught in his throat and he looked away, squeezing his eyes shut. From a certain perspective, he supposed that was true. Even if everything he was doing _here_ felt like a betrayal of everything he used to love. 

Jango nuzzled against the side of his head, bending until their foreheads were brushing. “She won’t be worth mourning, cyar’ika, none of them will be.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little fluffy, a little worldbuilding-y lol

“Does it bother you?”

Obi-Wan looked up from stirring the stew he was making, confused. “Does what bother me, Bob’ika?” Children’s minds, he knew, could sometimes leap to things he couldn’t keep track of, so Boba could be talking about any number of subjects.

“Using a different name. Buir does sometimes, for jobs, but not like you do.”

He turned down the temperature of the pot so he wouldn’t have to watch it closely and gave Boba his full attention. “Names mean different things to different people. Sometimes what’s more important to them is a title. Sometimes what’s most important to someone is their sense of self.”

Boba frowned at him with all the consternation an eight year old could manage. “And that’s you? You don’t care what anyone calls you?”

“I don’t,” he agreed. “But...well, do you know where my original name came from?”

“Obi-Wan?” He seemed to think about it, then shook his head.

Nodding, Obi-Wan moved into one of the nearby seats and directed Boba to join him, unsure how long the conversation would take. Behind them, he kept the wooden spoon stirring the stew using the slightest hold from the Force.

“When children are brought to the Jedi, it’s for many reasons. Sometimes, they’re offered by the parents when they have a very high ability in the Force and they need to learn to control it, the way someone with a blaster should know how to use it. Sometimes, because it’s an honor on that planet, they’re offered if they have _any_ ability. Sometimes they’re found by a Jedi on a mission and something just clicks in place.” He paused, considering his wording, though he knew Jango rarely shied away from telling Boba information. “Sometimes...it’s not an honor at all in their culture. Sometimes it’s something shameful. Something scary. And the Jedi have to come and save that child.”

Boba, perhaps having picked up the earlier pattern or just through his own insights, was staring at him with wide eyes. “The Jedi...they _saved_ you?”

With a chuckle, Obi-Wan agreed, “They did. Please don’t start telling your buir I’m saying such things, but they’re not _all_ bad. And not everything they do is bad, either. They don’t actually go around stealing children. Well, not children people want.” 

He felt Boba’s mood darkening in the Force and hurried on. “I don’t know who my parents were--I suppose there’s a record _somewhere_ , but it never really mattered to me. I didn’t know them and they didn’t want me. I had no name, when I was brought to the Temple. ‘Obi-Wan’ is left over from a very old language that Jedi traditionally used, from way back when the religion was very new. It’s been my name for most of my life, but my attachment to it is for myself and my...my old culture.”

Talk of attachment was something he normally avoided, he didn’t know how to talk about it without the “Jedi indoctrination” parts that Jango despised. He understood why it was an issue, of course, most people in the galaxy ran on attachments--and a Force sensitive without the duties of a Jedi had no reason to avoid them, either.

“Ben,” he continued, wanting to move on, especially as he felt another presence approaching the room,, “was given to me by a friend when I was on Manda’yaim. You know the word for ‘two things’? The root of ‘both’ and ‘either’?” He broke to over-enunciate ‘bin’ a few times in different accents. “In a Kalevalan accent, the ‘be’ sound is more distinctive, and it sounds like ‘Ben’ to an untrained ear.”

Boba frowned at him. “But what sort of name is that?”

He gave a wistful smile, wondering when his mission to Mandalore started feeling like a _simple_ time in his life. “My friend and I had to make many difficult choices while we were traveling companions. Oftentimes it would come down to something like ‘are we going to do this dangerous thing or this other even more dangerous thing?’ and I, well, had a knack for doing _both_ at the same time. When I started learning Mando’a, I’d just say ‘both’ whenever the options came up.”

“And he’s been teaching _that_ strategy to his poor cadets this whole time,” Jango added, startling Boba into jumping in place before he ran to hug his buir’s legs. 

“Just you wait, they’ll be the best troopers of the lot!” Obi-Wan declared, as he always did. 

With Boba distracted, it was easy to go back to the meal he’d been preparing. And with both he and Jango buzzing in the Force nearby, he didn’t have any issue releasing the melancholy he felt.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this chapter for awhile and I really like it, so I figure, why not just post it? lol You can have two Cuy'kaysh chapters today, as a treat ;)

By year eight on Kamino, Obi-Wan could sometimes forget he’d ever been anything but a Mandalorian. His beskar’gam felt like a second skin, wearing it everyday felt natural. His accent in Mando’a was now Keldabe by way of Concord Dawn instead of Concordian and Kalevalan. He’d even lost his Coruscanti accent when he spoke Basic (though he could affect it as needed, when making jokes). 

His emotions flowed with a freedom he’d never allowed them to, as a Jedi. He didn’t just acknowledge and release them, he used them, honed the edge of his skills and sharpened his senses. He walked a knife’s edge in the Force, but was growing used to that, as well.

Sometimes it felt like his life as a Jedi was a dream: a fantasy, of gardens and gentle friends he’d known since he was a babe or a nightmare of slavery, of war.

The only things that reminded him that it was _real_ were the lightsabers at his side and the infrequent visits by his grandmaster.

Which were growing even more infrequent thanks to the tensions between the Secessionist Movement and the Republic. He didn’t know what Dooku was thinking, pitting himself against the Republic like he was, but Obi-Wan had a bad feeling about it.

***

“You leave the Order,” he murmured, Basic heavy on his tongue, ducking Dooku’s blade and rolling out of the way, “you take control of your homeworld, no surprise.” He struck out, Dooku blocking as expected, and he flowed with the motion, spinning as he kept his blade overhead and between them. “You start making alliances with major trade organizations. Again, not too surprising.” 

A sharp stabbing motion cut him off as he rolled to avoid it, Dooku’s eyes narrowed. “No, I wouldn’t expect any of that to be a surprise to you.”

Obi-Wan pursed his lips, jumping up to the side, hanging in the air for a second instead of finishing the move immediately to add to the unpredictability, and barely missing Dooku’s arm as he moved away. “But then there’s the _Separatists_. I get it, as much as anyone, the Republic _is_ corrupt and the Outer Rim _is_ suffering for it. But this is bigger than that.” He made a flurry of blocks, falling back to a solid Soresu front, as Dooku pressed an advance. “Add to that the _clones_ of _Jango Fett_.”

He had to stop talking as Dooku’s attacks became even more intense, the Force pressing against him. That was one thing he couldn’t practice much except for with Dooku, the most powerful of the Force sensitive cadets still not capable of doing anything more powerful than basic Push-Pull. 

As much as Obi-Wan liked to pretend he’d have no reason to be well-prepared for an attack by another Force user, he knew the Jedi would be after him again if he ever reappeared. Not to mention that he might have Dooku’s favor for now, but whoever the other Sith was might see him as a nuisance. 

“What are you getting at, Grandpadawan?” he said the relation like he wanted to say something else, sometimes Obi-Wan could almost hear “my Apprentice” in that placeholder.

“This is part of a plot, isn’t it? _All_ of this. You didn’t approve of the Order before leaving, you definitely don’t _now_. The clones are a trap, that’s obvious, that’s the only reason Jango would go along with it to this capacity. We’re preparing those kids for _war_.”

Dooku stopped, moving into a resting position, Obi-Wan following a second later. “You are worried for your safety?”

He frowned, considering that. In all of this, his safety had been far less important than his survival and, whatever happened, he was fairly sure he’d _survive_. But now that Dooku was bringing it up...he did have to wonder. Obi-Wan was an ex-Jedi, the Dark clung to him like a possessive lothcat, but he was not a Sith. Would he be at risk from whatever was coming?

“If I said I was, would you be able to offer reassurances?” 

Tucking his lightsaber onto his belt, Dooku stepped forward and pulled Obi-Wan into a hug, a move that was aggravating in how used to it Obi-Wan had grown. He wasn’t touched deprived by any means, and he had the cadets with their Force abilities to counteract missing other Force users, but it was never really the same as Dooku’s presence. If Obi-Wan closed his eyes and lied to himself, he could pretend he was back at the Temple, with one of the old Masters.

“ _You_ need not worry. My Master has plans for the Jedi, but that does not include you. And war is dangerous, even for Sith Lords.”

Obi-Wan wondered if that was what Dooku and Jango shared, a plan to kill Dooku’s master. “All the more reason I could not be a Sith,” he murmured, “I wouldn’t want to kill you, grandmaster.”

The arms tightened around him and he thought, if nothing else, maybe he could convince Dooku to stop trying to recruit him.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a Tumblr prompt by cls1606 from awhile ago: Hi! For the prompts, maybe Jango’s POV while he’s painting Obi-Wan’s armor (I’m assuming Jango did that himself)?
> 
> Jango did not want to cooperate for this chapter, so it is what it is lol
> 
> I'm making up a ton of paint color meanings for this work, most of the ones in here aren't canon/Legends.

Obi-Wan still hesitated to directly ask Jango for things. Or, at least, for things for himself. It was a feature of his partner that set Jango’s teeth on edge. But Jango wasn’t going to press, he just sat back and waited the weeks out, until Obi-Wan finally came to him about whatever it was that was on his mind.

He’d stroked his fingers over the white of his beskar’gam, watching Jango in a shy manner so unlike him, and asked if they could change the colors.

When Jango had first seen Obi-Wan, he’d known he wanted to see what he could do in armor, in proper beskar’gam. Taking out the Jedi the way he did had been a pleasure to watch, after all, and he would have been so much more devastating if he’d been wearing more than cheap spacer’s gear. And Jango had wanted him to know exactly what it meant, for him to wear it, for him to make it a part of his everyday life. Then, the white had been necessary, had been a way of reminding him that he was leaving his past life behind.

It had flowed onto the armor that Jango had procured for him so easily, as if the Manda itself was guiding Jango’s hands. At that moment, in those first years, it was perfect for Obi-Wan.

Now, he could understand wanting a change. 

They were only a few years out from finishing their contracts, Obi-Wan had been cin vhetin long enough. 

***

“Coral?” Jango teased him--it was the color for the love of a partner, usually used around a marriage.

Obi-Wan bit back his initial reply and instead just gave him a look. That made Jango laugh, instead of continue, and they (thankfully) moved on, heading to the storage room that the Cuy’val Dar kept for armor maintenance. They collected the paints and supplies, Jango showing him what would be best to use for a repainting. 

Like all types of armor maintenance, there was an art to it, a method passed down from a Mandalorian to their children or spouses, that left Obi-Wan with implications he wasn’t sure he should react to.

Every piece of information that Jango imparted on Obi-Wan was clearly thrilling to him. Obi-Wan could understand that--Jango had learnt this from his buir, Jaster and someday, in Jango’s mind, the two of them together would teach this to Boba (and, Force willing, Boba to his own children). Like this, Obi-Wan could almost grasp that fantasy for himself, appreciate the soft edges and bright hope that it promised, despite being so different than anything he’d dreamt of before Kamino.

He didn’t let it distract him from his painting, but he did let it, hesitantly, warm his heart. At any other time, he’d be questioning it all, but right now the domestic aspect of this, and the soothing peacefulness coming from Jango, lulled him into accepting the illusion.

He stripped the paint, with help, and then began anew. The blue of reliability slowly spread further along the armor, greens joining it, covering up the last traces of raw metal. Forest green for duty, light green for patience. And detailing in dark brown, to represent how important teaching was to him.

Jango traced the air above one of the small brown sections and Obi-Wan didn’t need the Force to know that it was with the fantasy of a lighter brown, for parenting, in his mind. And whatever followed that made Jango’s eyes heavy, the Force in the room thickening with want.

“Are you really getting worked up by _painted armor_?” he couldn’t help but tease, knowing the signs of imminent arousal in Jango by now.

“There’s not a single part of you that doesn’t get me going, cyare,” Jango shot back, most likely to see the easy flush on Obi-Wan’s cheeks he had yet to suppress.

Despite all of Obi-Wan’s growing confidence in the area, forward words from his own lover always seemed to disarm him in a way he wasn’t quite prepared for. It was a trick Jango loved using (though Obi-Wan could only imagine what Jango would do if anyone else tried their hand at it).

“You’ll have to wait. I have a full day after this.”

Jango scoffed, clearly not buying his words considering he was the one in charge of the scheduling. “It’s your day off.”

That earned him one of Obi-Wan’s signature smirks. “Ah, but I have a new module I’ll be running the command class through. I need to take the time for research and prep.”

Slight annoyance, but no anger, showed on Jango’s face. He even rolled his eyes before swooping in to steal a kiss, heedless of the paint splattered on Obi-Wan’s bare arms. 

“Jaster would have loved you,” Jango murmured, with only the slightest hint of sadness, and Obi-Wan couldn’t help how brilliant that made him feel, either.

“From everything you say about him, I’m fairly certain I would have ended up your step-buir, instead of whatever this is.”

Jango’s gasp of mock-outrage made them both laugh.


	27. Chapter 27

“I wouldn’t expect more from a hut’ad.”

Obi-Wan hadn’t been paying much mind to the argument that had erupted between Priest and Vhonte--she was more than capable of handling Priest on her own and might even see it as an insult if he intervened. But even if he hadn’t been half-listening and heard the word himself, the sudden silence in the room would have clued him into something being wrong.

He looked up from the essay he was grading, saw the look on Vhonte’s face, and hurriedly marked Fox down as a perfect score before going over to her.

The word he’d simply filled in as “Haat’ad” now echoed in his mind. “Hut” had no good connotations and from the way Priest had said it, it seemed a common insult. A way of calling True Mandalorians cowards.

Priest noticed him coming first, sneering. “Going to threaten to report me to your sugardaddy, jetii?”

If it was possible for the tension to get thicker, it just did.

“Are you looking to die? So upset about being stuck on this planet you’d rather we take off your limbs and toss you in the ocean?” Vhonte’s hissed threat bloomed anticipation in the Force--she would very much like to do what she’d just suggested.

Reau, off to the side, was gleeful, watching them intently. It was clear to Obi-Wan she’d egged Priest on, somehow. Though to what end? Her motivations were often as hard to decipher as Jango’s.

“Priest, if you need to be reminded of your place, anyone here would be willing to help with that.”

The threat drew Priest’s attention back to Obi-Wan, not necessarily where he wanted it.If Priest _did_ attack him and Jango found out, he’d very likely murder Priest, Reau, and all of their clique. While that would be no great loss for the galaxy, it could make things difficult with their training protocols. 

“What do you even care, Cerasin? You’re here to get paid and trained by that fucker who hired us, anyone with eyes can tell you’re just playing along, letting Fett fuck you for special privileges.”

The claims were so ridiculous, they didn’t even make Obi-Wan angry. Not that he couldn’t reach for that anger, pulling up the easy comfort of it from deep in his heart, feeling it twist around his mind, cleave close to his skin.

Having sparred with Dooku enough, he knew his eyes were starting to shift to Sith gold, the air around him growing colder to the others. “Bold words, for a Kyr’tsad spy.”

Mij whispered his name from nearby, probably worrying he might lose control--he’d told him, once, what it was like to give in to the Dark. This wasn’t that, though, even if it was the Dark making him overconfident, Obi-Wan wasn’t that close to losing control.

Like this, Priest’s fear wasn’t a sickly, disgusting thing, it was the Force equivalent of delicious to Obi-Wan’s senses. When he stepped forward and it heightened, the Dark wanted more.

So Obi-Wan gave it that, pulling up more and more of Priest’s fear, pushing around in the surface thoughts that rose unbidden in his mind to make Priest dwell on the worst of the sudden associations he was having.

“Obi-Wan!” Mij said, more forcefully, and Obi-Wan blinked away from his task.

Priest was on the ground, arms wrapped around himself, sobbing and shaking. Reau was sneering down at him, poking him with the toe of her boot, and most of the others were laughing. A few had holocams out and taking shots of it.

He...hadn’t meant to do that. Hadn’t meant to go that far.

“Thanks, Mij,” he rasped, turning away from the scene of destruction.

In the comfort of his own rooms, he stripped out of his armor and fled into the fresher. On Kamino, there was no lack of water pumped through the desalination stations, and he could turn on the shower to near-scalding and sit on the floor, no warnings or sudden shut-offs to worry about.

After half an hour, he still didn’t feel warm, but he was settled enough to slip into a deep meditation and try to fix whatever damage he’d just done to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the Sunflare server, during one of the many conversations about Mando'a, terms for what different Mandalorian factions would call each other came up, and "hut'ade" was the word for what Death Watch would call the True Mandalorians (a play on "Haat'ade," which is what the fandom has them call themselves, which is like "children of truth" and "hut'uun" which is a really really awful Mando'a insult that means "coward").


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol false start on that last one

Each cadet Obi-Wan worked closely with had wormed their way into his heart, despite his best efforts to resist them. Sometimes, Obi-Wan thinks of the creche back at the Temple, at what the crechemasters must have gone through.

He wondered if his old crechemaster thought of him, fallen and presumed dead. If any of the Masters who’d trained him growing up did.

They knew they were raising children to go out and fight, to put themselves in harms way to protect the galaxy. Obi-Wan didn’t have the comfort of knowing what his cadets would be doing would be _good_ for the galaxy. The longer he was on Kamino, the less sure he was of that.

***

The Force Sensitive cadets were the only group that didn’t train based on batch and seniority. Obi-Wan had separated them early on by skill and aptitude, training the ones with more ability together regardless of age in the hopes they could support each other better that way.

If that had some semblance to the Jedi creche, he was careful not to tell any of the other trainers that.

***

Some of the cadets were so sensitive that Obi-Wan worried what might have happened to them, had he not been there. He could almost claim the Force had planned for him, had wanted someone like Obi-Wan on Kamino, in the Cuy’val Dar. 

With them, shielding was a matter of survival. He’d even see them separately, sometimes, testing them in the safety of a far off corner of the building, making sure that when they lowered their shields, it was unlikely anyone else would take a look inside.

He didn’t bond with any of them, wouldn’t do that to them (or himself). Training bonds were a sacred feature of a Master-Padawan relationship back in the Order and a twisted amalgamation of control and connection among the Sith as far as he could tell. There was no equivalent for Obi-Wan and his cadets, nothing he felt comfortable giving them.

They were still too young, too inexperienced, to deal with what might leak from his shields.

Anyone of them might fall: On a battlefield, while mourning their fellows, when everything just gets to be _too much_ for them. But he silently promised himself every time he trained them that it wouldn’t be because of Obi-Wan. He would not cause another to go through what he had.

***

“Why can’t we learn mind tricks?”

The pout no longer worked quite as well against him, but if it was another topic Obi-Wan might have given in. “Because you don’t need them. And they’re very difficult both to do and to be on the receiving end of someone _learning_ them.” 

The cadet, who had just chosen a very easy to remember ‘Fives’ as his name, scowled. “Can’t we just do them on one of those meathead Alphas? They won’t notice anyone poking around.”

“I can assure you that not only have they had thorough training in shielding, but they will _definitely_ notice anything you try. And punish you themselves for it.” Jango had taught the Alphas that himself, filling in what he saw as gaps in Obi-Wan’s lectures on fighting Force Sensitives.

“But you learned them.”

Obi-Wan bit back the curt reply he initially wanted to give. “I had a decade more experience than you and access to the best mindhealers in the galaxy if anything went wrong.”

“Let it go, you’re not going to convince him we should learn by acting like its your first day out of the tube,” Fox huffed, crossing his arms and pulling out what was coming to be known as the “official Commander look” among the trainers.

Later, once he’d finished this class and sent the cadets on their way, he’d thank Fox in private so as not to single him out as a “teacher’s pet.” Fox, removed from the prying eyes of his siblings, would blush, possibly stammering his way through accepting the praise, and then scamper off as though nothing had ever happened.

And later still, Obi-Wan would put down Fox's name as the first in a list of cadets who he, tentatively, considered for teaching the more precise mind arts.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this chapter done for a little while now, but about the time I went to post it some asshat wrote a comment suggesting the fic was _abandoned_ because I hadn't updated in like a month, so then I had to delay posting this so they didn't think I was rewarding their passive-aggressive comment. Think before you comment ffs we're not just mindless automatons that exist to shit out free reading material for you on demand.

The cadets grew up so, so fast, but somehow Obi-Wan was always surprised by how much _Boba_ had grown whenever he went away with Jango. He would come back and seem so much bigger, so much older. 

Obi-Wan would still gather him up in his arms (despite that he was getting to the age of protesting such shows of affection) and cuddle him close. Sometimes even when Jango was watching, smug and aggravating. 

But along with getting bigger, Boba was also getting _bolder_. And for as much as he was shying away from hugs, there were other ways he showed he cared for Obi-Wan.

Ways which Jango undoubtedly encouraged.

“Ben’buir!” Obi-Wan turned in the direction of the call, wincing as he heard the full term and the other trainers’ laughter.

Boba ran straight up to him, but stayed out of arm’s reach, as Jango moved at a more sedate pace behind, carrying a large satchel that was no doubt filled with all sorts of things to spoil them both. They’d gotten sunlight, wherever they’d been, and when Boba finally lost the battle of trying to dodge Obi-Wan’s hands, he smelled ever so slightly, still, of dirt and deciduous trees. He must have been _filthy_ when they returned from their trip to Slave I.

“I’m just ‘Ben,’ Bob’ika.”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t like that. ‘Ben’buir’ is better!”

Jango smirked and offered no assistance.

“‘Buir’ is a very important word, Boba,” Mij put in, glancing between the three of them, “and it’s one you need the other person’s agreement to use, whether they’d be the buir or the ad.”

Boba considered that, then shook his head. “Isn’t he my buir, too?” His best striil puppy eyes were turned against the trainers there, though it was probably Jango’s cold expression that had most of them refusing to deny it. 

Letting out a long suffering sigh, Obi-Wan picked Boba up and headed back towards Jango’s apartment, knowing there was no winning this round. 

***

“You need to stop encouraging him,” he said later, once they’d put Boba to sleep.

Jango raised his eyebrows. “I’m not making you make him dinner and read him bedtime stories.”

That was true. Obi-Wan forced himself to actually step back and consider how it must look to others, people who were _used_ to the children they take care of being their own.

“I...we’re not married.” He held up a hand before Jango could say anything. “We’re not _going_ to be married anytime soon. You know how I feel about that.”

He nodded. “Not until after the contract.” Which...wasn’t exactly what Obi-Wan had agreed to, but he didn’t need another argument on top of the current one. “But _we_ don’t have to be _married_ for you to be Boba’s other buir.”

Obi-Wan frowned at that, trying to think through the Mandalorian couples he knew with children. All of them had been married, but he realized no one had ever said they _had_ to be. Nothing in the training he’d received on Mandalore or in the talks he’d had with the Cuy’val Dar had actually included that.

“Because we’re in a serious relationship?”

He shrugged. “Because you’re helping to raise him. Even if we were only friends, there’s a good chance you’d end up a buir.” His eyes darkened, roving over Obi-Wan. “Not that I think I could ever manage ‘only friends’ with you, cyar’ika.”

“Jango--”

“It’s been _weeks_. Boba won’t be waking up from anything short of a full assault on Tipoca City.”

Obi-Wan supposed that when Jango put it like that...he didn’t actually have any reason to protest.


End file.
